Rex Serpentis
by tempest13c
Summary: Un unlucky man who just happens to be avid Fanfiction reader finds himself in an awfully cliche Isekai setup after dying from what was more than likely a truck. But able to choose a world of the new adventure he obviously goes for Harry Potter world. Unfortunately, he doesn't get to have any magic of his own, but it is nothing that a little possession won't fix. Goa'uld!OC
1. Bored Eternal

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Stargate SG-1. HP is the property of J. K. Rowling and is not my intellectual property. Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

A/N: So … I'm back? I kinda finally found both time and my muse and started writing again, this time a little crossover between HP/SG1. I will not abandon any of my stories, so anyone worried about that should calm down, but it may take me some time to finish or even upload my other fics. Sorry.

Edit: Made the story a crossover between HP/SG1. Maybe will get more traction ... I mean ... not even one Review. C'mon Guys ... a little love here.

ENJOY.

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§Testing§ - parseltongue

"Testing" – talking

"**Testing**" – Goa'uld voice/Eternal voice

'Testing' - inner voice

_Testing_ \- spells/letters

oOo - change of POV

xXx - scene break

.

1\. Bored Eternal.

He, a rather nondescript man, had just exited the mall with a busload of groceries when he caught a glimpse of his wristwatch. Startled he realised that if he doesn't seriously hurry he will be late for his bus, which would be the second time that day that that happened.

So he started to rather quickly run/walk to the nearest bus stop without paying much attention to his surroundings.

That would, unfortunately, cost him dearly.

Just as he was approaching the crosswalk, he heard a small commotion across the street that caused him to instinctively focused on it as he started to walk to the other site after checking that the light was still green. He forgot, in the commotion of some two strangers arguing, to look around for any vehicles that could cause him danger while crossing.

Just as he was approaching the middle of the crosswalk, bus stop that was his destination in his sights on the other side of the street, he heard a distinct sound of a car slamming its breaks.

Before he could as much as look at the sound, or even process what it could mean, he felt immense pressure on his left side and a quick stab of pain in his neck as his vision turned instantly black taking his consciousness with it.

xXx

Darkness slowly faded out as his consciousness sluggishly returned.

He managed to blink a few times after some time and took stock of himself, while also standing up from his previous laying position. He then finally remembered what had happened before he took his little nap.

"I …. Fuck … I was hit by a bloody car, on a crosswalk of all things…" he murmured disbelievingly as he once again checked himself over.

He couldn't find any damage to his body, not only that, but he was also wearing the same outfit as before passing out (just dark grey sweatpants, black T-shirt and a pair of cheap black trainers … and his wristwatch). The only difference was that he couldn't find his keys, wallet, cellphone and the bags containing the groceries he recently bought. Confused, he looked around for the first time and took in with dumbfounded expression his soundings.

The place he was in was rather small and straightforward. It was just a thirty square foot room with a black floor, ceiling and walls. He estimated that the ceiling was about eight feet from the floor. But most importantly, there was no door or window in sight. There was also no light sources which confused him to no end because he could see quite clearly, even with his surroundings being rather deep black colour.

"What the actual FUCK … what is going on! Shouldn't I be in a hospital or something?" He muttered to himself, slowly losing his composure, trying to figure out what has happened to him. "Maybe this is some kind of hallucination, and I'm in a coma?"

The coma scenario was starting to look more and more probable because while everything _looked_ real, it also felt quite unreal at the same time.

"**Good instincts Ephemeral, that is an entirely accurate description of this place.**" A sudden voice boomed all around him suddenly startling him so much that he actually fell on his arse. He noticed it had a posh British accent and belonged to a male.

"What! Who is it, where are you … and where the hell is this place, for that matter!" He shouted while quickly scrambling back to standing position, and trying desperately to calm down his rising panic.

"**I am an Eternal, my name doesn't really matter, and I seriously doubt you would be even able to comprehend it, let alone pronounce it. Not only that but I couldn't even directly talk to you because you wouldn't be able to register that someone like me is communicating with you. You ephemerals are so … limited … that I need a specialised intermediary to even talk with you. I do hope that the translation is accurate...**" He heard a distinct note of musing at the end from the so-called Eternal. "**Oh well, I am sure that it will be sufficient. Now I need to tell you something before you start rambling some unnecessary questions at me once again …**"

After what he could only assume to be a dramatic pause, the Eternal spoke once again. He couldn't fathom why the break lasted for about a minute, but he rolled with it to hear this supposedly vital information.

"**You Ephemeral, as it is in your nature, are dead … mostly.**" Eternal finally announced pompously as if revealing some fundamental truth…

'Wait … What?' He mentally backpedalled in his head. 'Did I hear him correctly?'

"What do you mean I am dead? I am fairly certain that I'm alive …" As if the environment around him was trying to prove him wrong, it shivered, and suddenly everything rapidly disintegrated, including his body, leaving only his mind and bodyless feeling. That and quickly increasing panic.

Just as swiftly, the room returned to normal with the only difference being his now crumpled body on the floor. Trying to put his breath under control, he tried to stump his rising panic as his situation was finally dawning on him.

'I … did I die?' He thought with a cold feeling spreading through his body. 'The crosswalk … the car … it did run me over… it killed me, didn't it?'

"**Indeed you did, and it was nearly instantaneous. And yes you were run over. Now that we have that covered, we should finally start on the reason for my intervention and rescuing your … soul, mind … essence? … I don't know how you ephemerals refer to your true self. Though your body is quite dead just so you know.**" The Eternal cheerfully proclaimed as if glad that they managed to get that sorted out … which ignited a new and welcome feeling inside of him. Anger.

"What! You … You … Where the fuck are you!? Show yourself!" He shouted at the black walls and channelling his anger which was preferable to the feeling of hopelessness he felt just seconds before.

Besides this, this Eternal was a bit of an asshole in his opinion.

"**Oh my apologies, I forgot that your kind prefers to speak to a physical representation of a person. Here … let me provide you with a suitable avatar so you can talk to it.**" The Eternal sounded a little bit apologetic for forgetting something so basic, or at least he got that impression. Not that he cared about that at the moment.

He saw with a corner of his left eye that something appeared few feet to his side. Still fuelled with anger, he spun to face the avatar of Eternal and give him a piece of his mind.

The moment he saw it, he froze, and all his anger evaporated.

Replacing it was bemusement and momentary confusion.

Before himself stood generic _female_ mannequin, without any clothes on and arranged in the famous Hamlet pose.

"What the …" he managed to finally stumble the worlds out but was interrupted.

"**I acquired the likeness of this avatar from your own kin … I hope you like it. As I understand it is used to represent the likeness of your species, so I concluded it will be sufficient.**" Spoke Eternal, this time from the mannequin which was doubly confusing because it didn't move an inch. Nor did its plastic mouth so much as twitched.

He looked at the plastic annoyance with irritation and decided that he should finally start to decipher what exactly he was doing in this place and if he could go back. Or at the very least what that bloody Eternal wanted with him.

"Eh … I don't even know how to respond to that, but for supposedly higher being you are pretty annoying." He mumbled irritatedly at the mannequin. "But I would appreciate if you tell me why I am here if I am apparently dead. Shouldn't I go to some higher plane or an analogue to heaven or hell?"

He was an atheist in life, but you couldn't argue if there is something after death or not if you could actually think that _after_ you died, kinda answering that question in the process. And he was so sure that there was nothing after death … not that he was going to complain.

"**Oh … do you mean ephemeral silly superstitions about living after death? Don't be ridiculous, when your kind dies you die. That's it. I rescued your … essence? Yes, let's go with that … the essence from naturally dispersing. Which would have scrambled your unique pattern. You were quite lucky that I saved you, for my own purposes, of course … but still.**" Eternal explained distractedly as if the answer to one of the biggest questions humanity had ever asked warranted little more than a footnote.

"Oh …" he managed to weakly articulate, aptly describing his state of mind.

So it turns out that he was indeed right, after all, but for some reason, it only filled him with a hollow sensation. Before it was just a question, an exercise in a philosophy that you could argue about. Now that it was confirmed to be a truth, a consequence of that hit him like a train.

His very life was saved by chance by a being that needed a dumbing down intermediary (whatever it was) to even speak to him. And he was entirely at its mercy.

There was only one question that needed to be answered concerning his situation in his mind.

Well … OK … maybe more than one.

"Why? Why did you save me? Why me?" He asked the mannequin from lack of anything else to talk to.

"**Because I am bored. Or at least that the closest I can call my state in your limited form of communication. And, as I require some entertainment, well … that's when you come in Ephemeral.**" The Eternal casually explained through mannequin. "**And why you? Pure chance, nothing more. There were countless more that fit my criteria, and you just happened to be most convenient to grab. That's it.**"

'What?' he thought dumb folded by the response of the higher being.

"What?" He said, voicing his thoughts. "So what exactly am I to you? A toy or something? A pet?"

"**More a means to an end really. But what's important to you is that you will be offered a second chance at being alive. And, as you don't have a body at the moment, I will even craft one to your specifications along with repositioning you to a "**_**world**_**" of your choice.**" The being patiently explained ignoring his accusations.

He immediately stopped his planned rant about the value of personal freedom and how lousy slavery is and actually took a moment to process what he was just told.

"Wait a moment … are you trying to tell me that this is basically a standard Isekai scenario setup … AND I get to choose the world that I can travel to? ANY reality?" He asked, excitedly. His former dread, anger and hopelessness evaporating entirely. "And what do you mean about a body? Don't I already have one?"

"**What you experiencing right now is … for lack of better description … a virtual representation of reality created and upheld by me. That is also the case with your current body, it is essentially just an illusion. In fact, you are just a pure essence and only maintaining your pattern because I assist you. As maintaining it would be impossible for you without a body.**" The entity explained patiently through the mannequin with just a hint of exasperation. "**And yes any Path, or as you would call it "**_**world**_**", is at your disposal to choose. If you are capable of imagining a setup, it most likely exists in that form somewhere. The universe is vast after all, and you ephemerals are too limited to think of something that even remotely approaches improbability.**"

He listened with growing excitement as Eternal explained his situation. It was basically a wet dream come true for someone like him. He loved the pure escapist experience that Isekai genre allowed him to fantasise about. And now he got the chance of a lifetime to actually experience it in person.

'Damn … now that I actually think about it, even the setting is so cliché. And here I thought that I will become some kind of pet to an alien for a second!' He mentally snorted at the concept while grinning like a madman at the plastic avatar of his benefactor.

"Ok … I think I get it. I get to choose the world, and you will also craft me a body to my liking. Will I be able to get any powers as well? For example, a body that can use magic or something like that?" He asked with hope tangible in his voice. It was his longtime fantasy to wield magic.

He was an avid fanfiction reader, and Harry Potter fandom nicely scratched his fantasy itch. Not that he didn't enjoy Sci-Fi setting, especially one of his favourite franchises being one … that being Stargate.

"**I think I will limit the specifications for your new body to only physical aspects, as any supernatural … that you are unable to naturally produce … powers would have to be maintained by me. And my involvement will end with you deposited on your new Path.**" Eternal casually crushed his dreams. Then added as an afterthought. "**It will also be more entertaining to me that way.**"

He experienced a wave of disappointment as the entity crushed his fantasy of being an overpowered Isekai protagonist that he was so fond of reading about. He ignored the comment about it being more entertaining as he figured that this whole thing was about some twisted alien reality TV show analogue to the Eternal. He didn't complain as long it didn't try spice things up and throw any hurdles his way.

Well … any more than "no powers" policy that is.

"OK … so no powers outside what my new body can produce naturally. Got it. And when it comes to the world of my choice … will Harry Poter setting be possible? Especially as compatible as possible with my own imagining of its setup? My "headcanon" if you will. Will that work?" He asked, hopefully getting over the first hurdle quickly. No point in crying over something he couldn't change.

He was sure that Eternal could read his mind due to their previous interactions and, while incredibly creepy, thanks to that he didn't have to meticulously describe what he wanted from it.

With that, hope arose that he would be able to go to a world of Harry Poter that closely followed what the perfect version of it in his head. At least perfect for him. Canon was frustratingly vague about the whole magic thing, and Runes being just analogue to foreign language class was downright annoying.

As long it had a hard magic system, alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist (it was just awesome) and useful Runes (especially in enchanting and warding) he will be a happy man.

That is if he finds a workaround to the whole "no powers" issue. Because that would mean no magic for him.

And wouldn't that be annoying?

"**I find nothing complicated with that request, and depositing you to a Path of your specifications lays within my powers.**" The Eternal spoke after short deliberation inducing a whoop of joy from him.

'Finally, something going smoothly for me.' He grinned to himself and started to walk around his little room while deliberating what to request for his body.

Movement always helped him think.

'OK … I could request standard superhuman abilities that deal with the physical. Enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, healing, intelligence etc. But that wouldn't help me with magic. If I can't figure it out, I would probably be better of choosing a world without supernatural abilities because going to the world of Harry Potter without magic would be just stupid. Even if I would love to go there.' He mused, walking left to right in front of the mannequin. 'If push comes to shove I will probably go to the Stargate universe. Lack of supernatural abilities wouldn't hurt me that much even if there are beings there with that kind of power. It will still give me a significant advantage to have superior physical stats. Or though, I will probably have to watch out for Goa'uld trying to take me as a host. I could just request immunity to possession by them … that would still count as physical power right?'

He was about to ask entity if a Stargate world would also be available to choose when he froze.

'Wait … possession!' His eyes almost popped out of his skull when he realised he might have just stumbled accidentally on a solution to "no powers" rule.

If he couldn't have the magic of his own, he could just possess someone with it.

"Do my body have to be human? Can it be a Goa'uld symbiote? And considering it is a physical characteristic of the species that they possess genetic memory … can I have it also? But with no emotional imprint, or whatever it is that is making them so dangerous and overpowering, I rather don't go insane from them." He asked, getting more and more excited about the idea by the second.

The symbiote could live for thousands of years, was more intelligent than human (he was reasonably confident of this) and had an eidetic memory. He remembered that Selmak died of old age at being about two thousand years old, and Tok'ra didn't use the insanity-inducing sarcophagus, so he estimated that this was roughly comparable to a natural lifespan of the symbiote.

But more importantly, the symbiote possessed genetic memory. A memory of technology far beyond current world (as in his original in year two thousand and nineteen) not to mention that of Harry Potter, which was at the beginning of the series almost thirty years behind technologically to what he was used to.

Just thought of such tech in his control while also having a host capable of wielding magic was sending shivers of excitement down his spine.

He didn't really think much about the moral implications of controlling a host. He could go with Tok'ra route if he possessed someone nice and Goa'uld with the rest.

"**Your new body can be any species you want as long as it is capable of holding your pattern. A Goa'uld body can indeed do it and thus is acceptable as a choice. When it comes to symbiote racial memories, it is agreeable as well to transfer them to you considering their physical nature. I will even ensure the memories are from a line of scientists, as I see your desire for scientific knowledge, and ensure that the memories don't overwhelm you … which is more complicated than just erasing emotional imprint.**" The entity answered and agreed amicably to his question/request, it even sounded rather pleased to him. Unfortunately, it quickly added afterwards. "**But due to significant advantage that will give you I will not allow any more changes to the symbiote that can increase its capabilities from its natural form if you go with that option. I would be less entertaining otherwise.**"

He was quite OK with a stock symbiote, so the Eternal ultimatum didn't phase him in the slightest. But as he started to think about it a little more, he decided that he needed to make two corrections to his request. One rather basic and another much more noteworthy.

He was debating himself for a while on the more noteworthy change, not even sure that it will be granted, as it carried some rather tricky to grasp connotations to him personally. On the other hand, it would significantly simplify the creation of his own power base with a loyal and "adjustable" army.

Or at least that what he understood were capabilities of a Goa'uld Queen.

"You said natural form, would another natural variant of the symbiote be OK? Could my body be that of a Goa'uld Queen? Oh … and if you don't mind, I would prefer the colour of the symbiote to be jet black." He asked tentatively pretty sure it would be rejected, but he wouldn't just throw away the ability to create an army of symbiotes that he could adjust to his heart desire.

He realised that that change would make him technically a female, at least that's what it felt to him, but as far as he could remember symbiotes were asexual beings and assigned themselves gender roles more due to their preferred host (usually first) than anything else.

'Well … I can just be a male Queen.' He thought to himself and cringed internally instantly. 'OK … first thing I do, if my request is granted, is changing the name to Goa'uld Royal or something. Fits both genders and don't invoke an image of myself wearing a ball gown and a tiara.'

And concerning the colour change … he just thought it would look cool. Black was his favourite colour.

"**Goa'uld Queen is indeed a natural variant of Goa'uld species, but being a Queen would significantly increase your capabilities. I will allow this change on the condition that your body won't be able to produce new symbiotes until at least a year have passed since your arrival. Think of it as a time your body needs to reach a maturity level necessary to produce offspring.**" Eternal answered after a moment of deliberation surprising him with its answer. "**The request for a different colour, as a cosmetic change, is also granted.**"

"Your condition is acceptable." He said dumbfounded, not bothered by the restriction after being completely surprised that his request was granted.

That and he gets to be a rather dashing colour too. Black is always in style, after all.

"Well … I guess that's the option I will go with when concerning my new body. To the word of Harry Potter as we discussed it." He said after a few moments of silence from the entity. "When it comes to the place and time of my arrival … I would like to be placed near the Dursley's home a day after Harry bought his supplies for the first year at Hogwarts with Hagrid."

"**I see no problem with your specification for a place of arrival. Please note that my involvement will end with you being transported to a new Path. No help, communication or otherwise, will be possible. Also if you die, I won't save you for a second time. Do you understand?**" Eternal asked casually but with a hint of finality in its voice.

"Yes, now let's get on with it. The sight of your avatar starts to really creep me out." He said with a lame attempt at humour that made him cringe slightly.

That would be so like him to anger his benefactor at the very end and make it consider the pet option after all.

"**Splendid, now farewell Ephemeral and entertain me with your meagre existence.**" Entity spoke with a cheerful tone, and everything around him started to disintegrate.

Before he could even feel panic due to everything collapsing around him, his concusses started to fade as if quickly falling asleep.

The last thing he saw before he passed out was the avatar finally moving. Or more accurately, its mouth.

The mouth which morphed into a toothy smile.

xXx

'Ugh … well, that was creepy as fuck.' Was his first thought as his conciseness awoken once more. The image of smiling mannequin burned in his mind.

He then remembered what was supposed to happen and took stock of himself once again.

He moved his head and looked at his now serpentine body with a mixture of awe and confusion, noticing in the process that his vision had gotten worse. But on the other hand, his field of view tripled at the very least, so it didn't bother him that much. He saw a jet black body, which reminded him more of an eel than a serpent now that he thought about it, but the confusing part was that he could move so effortlessly. He was under the impression that he would need to relearn how to "walk" but that would bring a significant danger to himself, so he was glad that didn't happen. It felt as if he moved that kind of body his entire existence.

Now that he thought about it, it felt as if he was doing it for literally thousands of years.

'Wait … I have memories of a Goa'uld now!' He excitedly thought while also emitting a distinct hiss like sound.

Not paying much attention to it, he tried to remember some familiar tech from the show.

Thinking about Kara kesh, he was flooded with detailed memories, knowledge and schematics of the device. It felt as it should overwhelm him, but his mind quickly dealt with it, which surprised him. He had such detailed and intimate knowledge of the equipment that he felt as if he could soon build one effortlessly with the right materials.

He also became aware of a vast knowledge just at the tip of his mental fingertips wich caused him to hiss contently and smile internally.

'Yes! It worked! And I don't feel overwhelmed as promised, which I am grateful for. All this knowledge at my disposal … now to find a suitable host.' He thought with joy and started to look around himself for the first time since arrival.

He saw that he was laying in the wet grass on a patch of greenery surrounded by a wooden fence that most likely was a backyard of a house he could see in front of him. If Eternal followed his instructions, then it was probably Dursley's house. From a dim light around and a lack of anyone nearby, he got a feeling it was early in the morning.

His plan so far was to possess either Vernon, Petunia or Harry. With one of the Dursley's being subdued and use as a mere meatsuit or Harry with Tok'ra approach. The tyke could use a friend as far as he was concerned.

He was very cautious about possessing magical people though, especially powerful ones or knowledgeable in the Mind Arts because he now felt they could overpower him and took control instead. It was doubly worrying due to his new knowledge of powerful Hok'tar … which could do just that.

If he possessed one of the Dursley's, excluding Dudley (he wasn't so cruel as to take by force a body of a child), he would probably use the body as an intermediary for finding a more suitable magical host. Using a trip to Diagon Alley with Harry as a front for searching a new host. He seriously doubted that Harry would complain if faced with a chance to revisit the Alley, even so soon since last time.

He carefully slithered to the back door of the house, enjoying the sensation of wet grass underneath him.

Just as he was thinking about that he became aware of a rather big problem if he doesn't find a host soon.

'Fuck … I forgot that my new body is basically an amphibian or alien analogue of one. My skin actually needs to be wet to breathe … I dry up, and I die.' He focused on memories detailing his physiology prompted by his thoughts.

If he could, he would have shivered, finally realising just how vulnerable he was at the moment. Not only he would die if he dried up if he were to be attacked by a dog or a cat it would be over. He wasn't compatible with any host other than a human or Unas to any reasonable degree. He wasn't particularly strong either, especially on land. It was additionally middle of summer, and he figured the only reason for the grass being wet was a sprinkler system of some kind.

He needed to find a host … and do so fast.

Pushing any panic down, he quickly slithered to the back door, trying to find some way to enter the house. The grass ended few feet from home forming a cobbled space in front for garden furniture to rest, or so he assumed spotting a small round table with three chairs near the windows on the right of the door. The door was unfortunately locked or at least closed, so he looked around to see if there is a different way to get in.

He spotted that one of the windows was slightly open with a tilt, giving him just enough space to go inside. He launched himself, after coiling up, on the table that was beside the window to then propel himself inside the house. He looked inside the home through the window spotting what looked like a dining room, but more importantly, there was no one there.

He once again coiled and precisely launched himself through the gap to the dining room landing on the carpet with a soft thud.

Looking around, he spotted the door to the hall, which was thankfully open and proceded to move there to go upstairs. As far as he knew both Dursley's and Harry lived on the first floor at this point in time.

Just as he was about to proceed with a daunting task of climbing the stairs, he was surprised to hear a muffled voice from the famous (at least to him) cupboard under the stairs. The sound was similar to something between a choke and a groan.

With curiosity winning over his haste to find a host for a second, he decided to find out what that was all about and approached the cupboard door. Surprisingly the door wasn't locked all the way, leaving a small gap just big enough for him. Cautiously he made his way inside and looked around, his eyesight being rather weak compared to human but much better when seeing in the dark, helped him in determining what was inside.

He let out a surprised shriek/hiss at what sight welcomed him as he entered the cupboard.

He saw what was unmistakeably Harry Potter, which looked exactly like in the movies, lying on his small bed facing the door. His face was bruised, and he saw blood coming out from his open mouth, nose, eyes and ears in small amounts. His eyes open and starring into a distance looking empty and occasionally flashing red colour as if they were trying to change but couldn't. His breathing was irregular and shallow as if he could barely do it.

'What the fuck! He is dying! And it looks as if Tom is trying to possess him!' He thought in shock, and without much more thought, did the only thing he really could to help the kid.

Faster than he thought possible he slithered to the boy and launched himself inside the open and drolling mouth, letting instinct took over the process of possession. He effortlessly entered the boy body and quickly warped himself around Harry's spine and started to weave around the nervous system with thin filaments extended from his body, eventually reaching the brain itself. He felt himself realising a myriad of compounds into the bloodstream, including naquadah, to ease the process of possession and start the healing.

New sort of awareness exploded in his mind, suddenly gaining remarkable level of control over his new host body, but he ignored it at the moment focusing on something he knew he should already encounter but couldn't find.

He couldn't find Harry's mind.

As he assessed more and more control over the body almost automatically, he felt small resistance. He was nearly relieved that he finally found Harry inside this broken body but quickly noticed that the opposition to his possession felt off. As if coming from the outside of the body rather than inside of the brain, that he now saw was severely damaged due to a stroke. With a prefrontal cortex taking the brunt of the damage. He focused on trying to fix the damage and ignored the resistance.

He was now more than sure that it was Tom's Horcrux.

'Come on, Harry! You can do it, kid. Just hang in there, and I will fix it in a jiffy!' He sent thought in a way that you would if you were trying to communicate with a host. Hoping he could reach Harry in some way and reassure him.

He put Harry's body in overdrive to heal, determined that he would help the kid, focusing entirely on fixing the damage.

He knew it will take him hours to do so.

xXx

He failed.

After five hours of constant battle, he managed to fix the damage and got the body in working order … and he still failed.

To fix the brain, he needed to replace the dead brain tissue, due to lack of oxygen and ruptured blood vessels with new ones he built from pluripotent stem cells. Production of which he put in high gear to meet demand. Almost all of the prefrontal cortex was damaged beyond repair and needed to be replaced. With it taking what made Harry … Harry. Not to mention the damage to other areas of the brain which didn't help. Rest of the body was relatively OK besides some developmental problems due to lack of sufficient nutrition.

But Harry was basically dead. He was close to brain dead when he took over.

He managed to find a few memories, but most of even that was gone. But he extracted what Harry saw last.

The face of furious Vernon, reeking of alcohol, standing above Harry (from the perspective he figured he laid on the bed) in his upstairs bedroom in the dead of night preparing to strike him down.

Apparently, this version of Vernon didn't take it well that Harry will, after all, go to the "freak" school, so he decided to beat it out of him one last time. And based on the condition of the body, he tried a few times before.

'Focus! I can deal with Vernon later … I need to get out of here before I do something that will get me discovered.' He tried to calm himself after a wave of homicidal rage swept over him due to the fate of a child, body of which he now occupied. It wasn't easy, to say the least, to not just run upstairs and kill the monster outright.

So instead, for the first time since possessing the body, he moved it, changing his position to sitting and starring on the cupboard door. He blinked a few times and moved his new hands in front of him to check his control over them. Everything seemed to be okay.

Controlling host was both familiar, due to racial memories of Goa'uld, and alien compared to his own controlling his old body. He was using Harry's brain (cerebellum), so there was a degree of separation that was both new to him and familiar.

"Testing … I guess the voice works as well." He spoke using Harry's mouth, glad that it worked in the first place. Then just to see if he could he spoke in his "god" voice. "**Vernon is going to die.**"

He stood up carefully, watching to not hit his head on the cupboard ceiling, and stepped out of Harry's former prison. He was wearing what he assumed were Harry's version of pyjamas (consisting of loose patched trousers and two sizes too big T-shirt) and was barefoot. He checked it once more to see if there is anything useful there, which there wasn't, and headed to what was obviously kitchen to his right.

He burned a lot of energy healing the host body to working condition, and he needed to replace it. And eating on Durlsley's tab was more than okay with him.

He located the fridge, opened it and proceded to eat as quickly as possible anything edible to fill his stomach. Not bothering with preparing the food in his haste to get out of this infernal place. During this, he spotted a wall clock that showed it was ten in the morning.

"Lazy arseholes didn't even wake up yet." He muttered between mouthfuls of food more to practise than anything else.

After finishing stuffing his new body to the brim with food, he decided to take Harry's … or now his, possessions from the upstairs bedroom, where he assumed they were, and afterwards use the Knight Bus to get to the Leaky Cauldron. Not bothering to even close the fridge he moved to the stairs.

He quickly traversed the stairs and arrived at the first-floor landing. He spotted a distinct bathroom door and decided to wash away the blood he remembered having on his new face. Both quickly and quietly, he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

He stepped in front of the mirror, above the sink to see his new face for the first time from the first-person perspective. He immediately noticed that the bruising was gone, but he also had dried blood all over his face and T-shirt. Not only that but his first assessment was spot on concerning the appearance.

"I really do look like Daniel Radcliffe now … with green eyes, but still … I guess Eternal took even that detail from my mind and matched the world to reflect that." He muttered to himself using his new mouth. Out of curiosity, he tried to flash his eyes.

The reflection eyes flashed brightly with emerald green shining through his irises. The effect was quite intimidating and impressive, primarily due to his expressionless face. He tried to put a smile on, but the result looked eerily similar to the mannequin he saw before arriving here.

"OK … I need to work on that. I guess the damage to the brain had some consequences. I don't remember expressing emotions being this hard for other Goa'uld from my memory. Even if just to deceive others." He mused aloud getting more comfortable with the body. The difficulty in controlling facial expressions was a minor setback at most, so he didn't really get bothered by it.

"So … I am Harry Potter now, huh." He enunciated to the mirror, looking at his bloody face. It didn't feel right to him the moment he spoke it.

From the moment he read the books, he was fantasising about being Harry … true … but he wasn't. Reading fanfiction, he wanted to also take a different approach to what was in the canon, to change Harry into someone cool, but not like that. He was acutely aware that he was wearing a child's body that was basically his hero from childhood. Murdered before he could experience life.

He wasn't Harry Potter. Even if he had to lie to others, he wouldn't lie to himself.

"Then who I am?" He asked his reflection in the mirror with a stone-cold face.

His old name didn't feel right anymore, and he wouldn't use Harry's as his own … outside to upholding the ruse to everyone around that the mind of the last Potter was still in, now his, head.

He suddenly remembered his favourite online handle, and that he always wanted to change his name to match it. Now that he thought about it, it fitted him perfectly, especially with his symbiote body being jet black.

Black was always in style, after all.

"**My name is Ater.**" He spoke in Goa'uld voice, flashing his eyes for effect while also twisting his face into a sharp and dangerous-looking toothy grin. He still needed to work on that, but it worked well enough.

As newly minted Ater, he proceeded to wash his face and hair from blood and in the process, finally noticing that he didn't wear any glasses. He shrugged it off considering he could see better than even in his old human body (which had 20/20 vision) and attributed this to healing properties of the symbiote. He wasn't always aware of what he fixed, especially so if he focused so much on the brain like before. And considering that he flooded his host circulatory system with pluripotent stem cells, it wasn't that hard to believe that some fixes missed his awareness.

Finishing his wash, Ater decided to finally go to take his (as in Harry's former) stuff from his bedroom. He exited the bathroom and taking a hunch, he chose a battered door on the left of the staircase and walked in.

His gut turned out to be true when he entered a room that was unmistakenly Harry's. It looked very similar to what he saw in the movies with minor differences. He instantly spotted the trunk which contained his new belongings and approached it.

The trunk thankfully looked more like an actual trunk, unlike a glorified briefcase like in the movies, fitting what he always imagined it looked like. Outside of that, it was very unassuming.

He approached it and opened the lid to see if the most crucial staff was still inside, that being the Holly wand and Potter vault Gringotts key. He immediately spotted the distinct long box which could only contain one thing … that and "Ollivander Wands" was clearly written on the lid of the box in loopy stylised writing. He reached out and removed the top.

The sight that welcomed him was both familiar and not. The wand looked differently from its appearance in the movies for sure, it didn't have the handle that always annoyed him and looked exactly as he imagined a wand would look like. It was straight, polished to a gloss warm brown wooden stick … it didn't have any markings and seemed quite dull.

What worried him is that it didn't … feel magical, for lack of a better description. He was counting on some feeling of being drawn to it or something at least.

Yet he felt nothing.

On one hand that wasn't surprising, it was Harry's wand, not his. But he counted on feeling at least something from Harry's body.

'I really hope that this body didn't lose the ability to cast magic. That would be … problematic.' He thought with trepanation.

He knew that in that scenario he would have to abandon Harry's body, at least after finding a new host, as his inability to cast magic would be a significant red flag to anyone interested in Harry Potter. And that would bring unwanted attention and undoubtedly lead to the discovery of his actual body, leading most likely to his death.

Unfortunately for him, everyone even remotely magical was interested in Harry Potter.

'Well … there is only one way to find out for sure.' He thought, and after mentally steeling himself, he reached for the wand.

The moment his fingers touched the wand, the cold wood caused a lurch inside his host body, pushing through the feeling he grabbed the wand and raised it from the box.

Before he could do anything else, he felt a great wave of pressure and heat travel from the wand through his veins alongside an utterly strange feeling, one he had never encountered before … as a human or a Goa'uld. The sensation was immediately joined by one similar yet much stronger emanating this time from his host body.

The strange feeling was unlike anything he has ever encountered and beyond his ability to describe. What he could do was ascertain what it … "carried" with it.

It made him feel powerful and in control. Like anything was possible if his will was strong enough. For the first time in his life, he could understand what real unabashed power feels like, even memories of his Goa'uld ancestors didn't come close to it with their control over vast expanses of space and countless people.

What he could experience right now was power over reality itself.

Lost in this euphoric and overwhelming feeling it took him quite a few seconds to notice that something was not right.

His first clue was finally being aware of a significant amount of pain his host body was experiencing, that and pain his real body was slowly starting to feel too. Thankfully he could easily adjust the sensations from the host body, effectively turning off the pain he felt that way. And the pain he experienced as a symbiote was manageable.

His second clue was the fact that he was glowing.

'What the … what is going on?!' Ater thought shocked, finally snapping from being overwhelmed by the experience. 'That can't be good.'

He noticed that the wand ejected a steady stream of gold and black sparks disappearing after a few inches from the tip, he then focused on his glowing hand. He saw that while his whole body was glowing, his veins seemed to radiate the most.

This quickly reminded him of a trope he regularly encountered when reading any fanfiction dealing with a wizard being possessed by a symbiote, a trope that looked to be quite right in its premise.

Apparently, naquadah really did amplify magic.

He could even understand why that is, as naquadah amplify any energy that passes through it. Add to it the fact that the miraculous material was also room temperature superconductor and could store a ridiculous amount of energy you ended up with something that could, in theory, enhance the magic. As long as magic was a form of energy that could interact with the naquadah.

'And apparently, it is.' Ater thought annoyed at the whole situation. 'I should have predicted it, but that is a matter for another time. How do I stop myself from blowing up?'

Ater decided to count on the assumption that the trope is more or less accurate in this world, so he chose to deal with it the same way he read it was dealt with. Which was controlling your magic and calming it down, usually done so using Mind Arts or sheer force of will.

And while he, unfortunately, didn't know any Mind Arts (which he was going to correct as soon as possible) he reasoned that he knew the next best thing and in combination with a strong will to survive it should work.

He was thankful that one of his Goa'uld ancestors possessed a Jaffa, and was forced to live as one for a few years before he could escape as that gave him the knowledge how to perform Kelno'reem. He was pretty sure that it will help him to overcome this "magical surge". If not, he will be forced to abandon Harry's body, and he was loath to do so. He might have failed to save him, but at least Harry's body survived. And he would do his damn best to ensure that it will remain so for a very, very long time.

Besides, he planned to kill that obese monster for killing his childhood hero, using this body to make sure that Vernon knows precisely why he was going to die. He didn't even acknowledge how easy it was to him to not only contemplate murder but also ruthlessly plan it with all the intention of going through with it. As far as he was concerned, the monster deserved it, and while he wouldn't do so before, when he was human, he was now a Goa'uld in the body if not in mind.

He might as well live up to the reputation.

'Now focus and control this bloody surge.' Ater thought to himself as he sat with great difficulty on the floor still clutching the wand, he noticed that he no longer felt the hand holding the wand and trying to drop it resulted in just weekly waving the thing back and forth.

He became acutely aware that he was losing his grasp on the motor functions of the host body and that the pain felt by his true self was increasing, and he couldn't turn off the pain this time as he did before.

Oh … and he was glowing even more now.

Not wanting to waste even more time he closed his host eyes and focused all his attention inward. Usually, the state of Kelno'reem would take some time to induce and even with knowing how to do it, he would have to practice a lot to do it right, so he cheated. He simply manipulated the brain chemistry and body to the same state that would be achieved during deep meditative state and allowed himself to truly and deeply connect to the mind of his host. He imagined that Tok'ra used a similar technique during their blending but doing so with an empty mind was a weird feeling.

Notably, since he suppressed brain activity, in the same way, Goa'uld would usually do to host mind just in case some newborn-like consciousness arose. Even if that was extremely unlikely, he didn't want to deal with such a scenario, and he had tentative plans already in place for what he was going to do with the "mental real estate" that was vacant.

Focusing inwards, he examined the sensations of the body and tried to determinate from where exactly did magic come from and if he could somehow control it mentally. He studied his memories of how magic emerged within his host body and from what he could tell it came from … well … everywhere at the same time. It was like his whole body was an opening to the place where the power is usually stored. And now that he got a good "look" of how it felt he would be probably able to at the very least detect even small amounts of it in the body.

As far the control goes logic dictated that he would be able to do so, as he controlled the brain and wizards could control magic with their will … that is the brain. The problem was he didn't have any baseline for how magical people control their magic. If he possessed some wizard and he would cast a spell or do any form of magic he would be able to see how it is done so he could replicate it.

He didn't have such a luxury and still needed to figure it out on his own. And fast.

He decided to go with another trope that was most likely also accurate here, or at least he hoped it would be. He always enjoyed reading stories where Harry had to "find" his magical core to unlock something, usually an ability or some such. And it involved diving deep into his mind and finding a mental representation of his core. The way magical energy appeared from within his body he figured that it was stored in some extra dimension or something, which would fit the definition of magical core. But if wizards could summon this power at will, it meant that there was some kind of two-way communication going on between the magical core and a wizard.

If he could tap into that communication directly, he could possibly control the flow of energy. Maybe even amount of it, so next time he uses a wand, he wouldn't glow and emulate a flash grenade.

He figured that this was instinctual, so hidden deep within the mind and thus hard to reach. Thankfully he was a Goa'uld and both controlling and manoeuvring inside a mind was his bread and butter. With that he focused entirely on the task mentally diving inside the mind of his host to the deepest reaches of it, feeling the intoxicating sensations he now associated with magic but this time not submitting to them.

Ater followed the feeling when he realised that he no longer could detect his body or feel any pain and now felt the familiar bodyless detachment that he remembered from his interaction with Eternal. Thankfully he could still sense the magic and willed himself to "travel" farther yet. As he travelled, he tried to will a mental representation of a body around himself so he could centre his thoughts and soothe his mind with something to grab on other than a feeling of magic that was becoming overwhelming once more.

He became aware that he unexpectedly succeeded when he felt a familiar sensation of a body around him which made him smile as he now had something to anchor his thoughts once more outside of the magical trail he was following. Magic also become less overwhelming, which allowed him to continue without the fear of losing himself in it.

He then realised that he actually felt himself smile and raised his hand in front of him to look at it. As if something clicked in his awareness, he could suddenly perceive everything visually rather than just by feeling it. He looked at his hand and saw human limb with jet black skin like his real symbiote body, but this time instead of a degree of separation he felt when controlling a host, he moved the same way he did as a human.

"_**Well, that's nice.**_" He spoke at loud and surprised himself by speaking in a combination of his old voice, a young child, that he recognised as Harry's voice when he spoke it and a noticeable background of Goa'uld voice. "_**But that voice is freaky.**_"

Looking around, he saw a vast borderless space that he was floating in, filled with what looked like glowing dense fog that he somehow recognised as magic. He noticed that the mist moved upwards with respectable speed and away from the direction he was moving towards. Not seeing any reason in just floating there, he dived to the course that most likely contained the source of magic. He enjoyed the ease with he was flying when he both saw and felt something different.

He saw a bright light shining through the already glowing mist looking like a sun behind an obscuring fog. But it was what he felt that told him that he found what he was looking for, the feeling he associated with magic has grown to a level he could bearly withstand, and it took all of his focus to not just get swept away with it. He concentrated on the thought of his survival and his impending death if he doesn't resolve the magical surge he was experiencing, and that if he doesn't gain control over the magic, he will likely experience it again if he survives this one.

With that in mind, Ater steeled himself and dived in the direction of the magical core. As he was approaching the visibility suddenly improved along with a feeling similar to being submerged in water, and for a second, he thought that he accidentally flew inside the core. The sight in front of him quickly dissuaded him of that idea as an impossibly bright sphere was right in front of him invoking an image of the sun even if much smaller.

The light was so bright that he was surprised for a second that it didn't just outright blind him, but then he remembered that he didn't see with his eyes right now. All the things he was seeing were only how his mind interpreted what he was experiencing and translating it into visual cacophony in front of him.

He was also acutely aware that the only reason he was able to resist and not lose his mind in the feelings magic invoked in him was that the sensations were now so intense they actually hurt. It was not a pain in a physical sense either but a mental equivalent of one … It was like something screamed POWER and was showing forcefully all that was associated with that inside his mind. Ironically this made it easier to deal with the feeling and not to lose himself in it, on the other hand, the mental pain was making it hard to think and was quickly approaching the point that his mind would be more than likely in danger of collapsing.

He didn't have much more time. Ether his mind would snap, or his body explodes as naquadah had a nasty habit of exploding when reaching full energy saturation and you tried to shove even more into it.

In the stories, he read that by interacting with a core directly, one could control it. So that translated to touching the core and trying to will it to stop spewing so much magic around. That was the idea at least and his plan of action. He just hoped that touching the core will connect him to it in a way that allows control, instead of just burning his mind out with magic.

At this point, he didn't have a choice but to take a leap and hope for the best.

He approached the sphere that he now realised was a hundred feet in diameter at the very least and looked smaller because of a distance between it and him. As he flew to the core, the pressure increased the closer he was to it, like he was diving into the depths of an ocean. With increased pressure came more of the mental pain, and he was starting to experiencing it as an actual pain … like a massive headache, awareness of which was slowly coming into focus.

Finally, he came within a reaching distance of the core at which point he was feeling as if being squeezed by a massive force, it wasn't a painful sensation per se, but it was uncomfortable and brought a suffocating feeling with it. What was painfull was the gigantic headache he was experiencing, and he was barely able to think due to his mind being blasted with the feelings magic brought with it.

He was starting to regret having a body at the moment, even if an imaginary one. The pain was real enough.

Not sure if he would last much longer, he unceremoniously showed his jet black hand into the sphere momentarily surprised by a lack of noticeable resistance.

Then came the real pain.

Ater didn't even notice when he started screaming.

It took all that he was to even focus beyond experiencing the pain and putting all of his available mental facilities into willing the core to just stop. At first, there was no noticeable change when he suddenly became aware of something new. It was as if part of his body melted and merged with the magic of the core, while not ceasing to be connected to him … while he could still feel it.

And just like that new awareness expanded inside his mind and the pain, while still there, became much more manageable. He no longer only experienced the effects of magic, now he could actually feel it as if it was part of him. Now he felt he could control it.

Now that he could think more clearly, he doubled his efforts in willing the core to stop spewing out magical energy like it was going out of style. While doing so and seeing that he was finally having some success, noticing even the feeling of pressure subsiding slightly, he felt resistance.

He felt a spike of panic at the resistance, thinking it may be Horcrux trying to gain control once more, but he quickly realised that it wasn't the case. It felt different, like a sucking force from within his host body keeping the magic from subsiding.

It was definitely the naquadah in his host blood.

With a pained groan, he focused even more on stoping the surge and closing the core at the very least enough to make the flow of magic manageable. He showed his other hand into it and ignoring a spike in pain purred his will into the magic commanding it to stop, to close the magical core and shut down the surge that was killing both him and his host body.

With a great effort, he slowly pushed trough the effects of naquadah, and after what felt to be hours, he finally managed to close the magical core enough to stop the surge. The feeling of pressure and heat subsided to comfortable levels, and the blindingly bright light that was previously emanating from the core dimmed to a soft glow.

Looking at it, he saw a web of faint black lines on a surprisingly metallic-looking surface that had a colour of gold and consistency of a dense liquid. As he removed his hands from the sphere, he noticed a web of gold lines marring his jet black skin, looking at his imaginary body, he saw that they extended to cover all of his skin.

Looking back at the mental representation of the magical core, he saw his reflection on the metallic surface. Both his face and hair were jet black, and the only reason he could differentiate between the two was the web of gold lines that had a vain pattern on his skin. He could recognise some of the features of his former face alongside what looked like Harry's characteristics.

But the real defining feature and the one attracting attention were his eyes. They were iris-less and completely red, the same colour that his eyes were as a symbiote.

"_**I guess that I win the "evilest eyes" contest Tom,**_" Ater spoke in his weird gestalt voice with a snort, "_**suck on that!**_"

His appearance didn't bother him much due to being just a mental image of himself. In the real world, he still looked like a normal Goa'uld outside of colour. And he knew his host will grow to be a rather handsome bloke, so no complains there.

With his task done, he didn't see the point of staying there any longer, so he ventured to depart from the depths of his host mind.

He quickly traversed from the core to what he perceived as up and was soon surrounded by magical mist once more, looking far less agitated and lazily moving in the same direction as him.

His vision started to waver, and suddenly he was subjected to a familiar bodyless feeling that he ignored and continued to travel where he sensed magic was moving.

Just as he predicted, he became aware of both his symbiote and host bodies and quickly retracted mentally to his real body and took stock of his and his host health.

The only damage he could detect was minor and comparable with an injury caused by a heat stroke and small radiation damage. Both were thankfully easily fixed and primarily contained to his host body.

What he didn't expect was an overall sense of wellness and health that he didn't detect before, even the small developmental problems he identified previously seemed to be gone.

That and he could sense now the magic that was coursing through his body, the amount of which was far smaller than during the surge but definitely noticeable. Magic seemed to be centred on his veins travelling alongside it. He didn't know if the amount was comparable to previous levels, but it didn't hurt him any longer and judging by his newfound health it was beneficial, so he let it be.

Now confident that there was no longer any danger he waked his host from an artificially induced state of Kelno'reem and opened his eyes.

He didn't know how long he was occupied with dealing with the surge, but there didn't seem to be anyone around him, and light level didn't change noticeably from before he started glowing. He was also in lying position, presumably falling from sitting in front of the trunk when he lost control of the body.

Thankfully he quickly determined he wasn't glowing anymore by moving his hand in front of him, and while he was still holding the wand, it didn't produce the same effect as before.

"So far so good," Ater spoke relived that his host body seemed to work just fine and that his voice was back to normal. "Now, where was I?"

He carefully stood up and walked back to the trunk. As he stood in front of it, he frowned slightly, actually taking an effort to twist his host face into the expression.

He needed the practice, after all.

"That seemed … off somehow," Ater spoke, reflecting on the way he walked. "And the view has a different perspective, even if only slightly."

He estimated that the perspective was off by about two inches. Which would mean that he grew up two inches in a matter of what he presumed were … minutes? Maybe even less time.

Curiously he lifted the T-shirt up and saw that any signs of lack of nourishment were gone, he now was nicely filled in and looking like a normal healthy eleven-year-old boy. There weren't any six-packs unfortunately but this he could fix on his own when the body was ready for some conditioning.

He also noticed that he was famished. Again.

"Well … perks of surviving a magical surge, I guess?" Ater mused lifting his T-shirt down and focusing once again on the trunk. "And another raid on the fridge is in my future it seems, tough luck for the Dursley's."

With a vindictive smirk, he started to rummage through the staff in the trunk looking for Gringotts key and hopefully money pouch with some galleons. He quickly found the pouch and looked inside, he was satisfied to see a respectable amount of not only galleons but also sickles and knuts. Putting it aside, he continued his search.

He finally found the key hidden in some socks at the bottom of the trunk, clearly done so to prevent Dursley's from seeing it. It was slightly larger than his hand and intricately carved at the handle. He put it alongside the money pouch and fished out some clothes to wear from the trunk, choosing what was most likely the uniform. Thankfully it looked like the one from the movies rather than books, so without the cloak, he would look relatively muggle.

He stripped down from Harry's pyjamas and put on the uniform leaving the cloak, thankful that Harry apparently bought both underwear and socks for Hogwarts as he didn't fancy wearing Dudley's castoffs.

When he finished changing, he saw that his sudden grow burst had made the clothes slightly too short, but before he could do anything more, he felt foreign magic invade his body from all around him. It thankfully quickly retreated before he could do anything else than feel a spike of panic, the reason for the magical scan (he assumed) became apparent when his clothes grew slightly to cover for the difference in the size.

"That's nifty … resizing enchantment or something similar?" Ater spoke eyeing the clothes curiously and not finding anything unusual.

Shrugging it off he proceeded to look for an appropriate way to stash his wand in but not finding anything even remotely resembling wand holster. Frowning, he looked around and spied a small closet near the door, so he opened it. It was filed what was obviously haphazardly thrown in castoffs previously belonging Harry's cousin.

He quickly searched through the pile and find what he was looking for in a pair of old trainers. He extracted the pair of shoelaces in relatively good shape and discarded the shoes on the castoffs. He then proceeded to tie them on his left forearm after pulling up the shirt sleeve to expose the naked skin. One tied up near the wrist and another near the elbow. He then picked up the wand and stashed it in between the two loops created by the shoelaces on the inside of his forearm.

"Good enough, for now, I guess. Better that than blown up buttocks … or so Moody claimed in the books. Either way, it is faster to draw than from the pockets." Ater murmured to himself while testing the draw.

It worked well enough aside from the resistance from the flesh, making it slightly challenging to draw out the wand, but it worked as intended and was temporary ether way. Besides, he didn't know any spells.

He just didn't want his host buttocks all over the new trousers.

"Maybe I can test the spellcasting too? Casting Lumos shouldn't send a bunch of Aurors my way, and even if it's detected, I will at least know that the Trace is still a problem. Not only that but also confirm if I can even cast spells in the first place." Ater spoke to himself, vocalising his thoughts and trying to convince himself to go with trying out spellcasting for the first time in his life.

He suspected that a magical signature was a thing here as it was something he considered his headcanon for Harry Potter universe. In his mind, it made sense, especially since he favoured the hard magic system with defined rules and logical use and application. That's why he liked Runes so much, it was like a way to program magic, and that appealed to him very much. At least the kind of Runes portraited in most fanfictions.

He was pretty sure his host magical signature was different now, not only due to naquadah in his blood but also because of what he saw in a mental representation of the core. The black web on the golden sphere probably represented his influence on his host magic. It wasn't his per se, but it now listened to him.

One of his primary goals when in Hogwarts will be finding a way to somehow make this magic properly his. Because he could sense magic now he knew that his real body didn't produce any unlike his host, it was travelling through and saturating the symbiote for sure, but magic appeared from the core everywhere _but_ his body.

If he were to change hosts, he would most likely lose magic too, and if he possessed another wizard, he would have to deal with another surge the moment the host used his magic. And he would have to let the host use magic and calm the surge because he now understood that the connection to the core was facilitated by the will of the wielder. So to wield another's magic, he would have to subdue the mind of a new host and do the whole dance with the core all over again.

And he barely survived last time.

Ater sighted and pulled his thoughts away from the sidetrack he put himself on to stall on his first casting. He was surprisingly nervous but put himself together and decided to just get it over with and move on.

He raised the Holly wand up, and before he could cast, he remembered something that gave him pause.

Dobby.

The crazy elf put Harry in trouble by doing magic, his _elven_ and _wandless_ magic, and somehow Ministry pinned it on Harry.

How?

It was evident that the Ministry must have some way to detect magic use beside Trace, or Trace is sensitive enough to trigger when a spell is cast nearby enough. Either way, it is something that is not reliant on a magical signature.

Ater remembered that he rationalised it by thinking there must be some kind of non-specific Trace, outside of more focused and powerfull signature (or wand, or both) specific Trace, over all of UK that was easy to ward off and was used to detect magic in area of heavy Muggle presence. Places like Hogwarts and magical villages, alleys and households were probably warded against it to shield from triggering it.

And because it was something that he considered to be true in his mind, it was probably how it worked here in this world. He did tell Eternal to match the destination of his arrival to his headcanon after all.

He also strongly suspected that the Dursley's house was especially carefully watched because Harry Potter was living here, either by the Ministry, Dumbledore or both.

Knowing his luck probably both. And he more than likely inherited the famous Potter luck too.

Oh, joy.

"Dammit, there is no point in testing the casting in here. The better place would be Diagon when I get there … Eh … now I am a little disappointed that I didn't get to do it now." Ater murmured with annoyance and stashed the Holly wand in his DIY holster.

He quickly walked back to the trunk, and after some deliberation, he fished out one of the few cloaks and closed the lid. He wouldn't wear the cloak near here, but before he entered the Knight Bus it would be better to have it on as with it and the hood on he was covered enough to conceal his identity.

And Harry Potter was bloody famous so that will be a must.

Not seeing any reason to stay here any longer he tied the money pouch to his belt and stuffed the Gringotts key to his right trouser pocket. Grabbing the cloak in his left hand, he effortlessly lifted the trunk with his right.

It was nice to be a Goa'uld sometimes.

xXx

A/N: So … what do you think? And don't worry, I did not forget about Hedwig. Don't know when will upload the next chapter but it will probably be more than a month. Sorry for lack of a more concrete timeline but I don't want to promise more than I can deliver … again that is. R&R Please!

And see you next time.


	2. Age-appropriate action

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Stargate SG-1. HP is the property of J. K. Rowling and is not my intellectual property. Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

A/N: So a new chapter is on! And yes, I know that owls "Bark" rather than "Hoot" (at least the species of owl that Hedwig is a member of), but I like it better like that so sue me! And sorry for the little delay, but I did warn you that there was no concrete timeline for chapter release so no complaining! :)

ENJOY.

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§Testing§ - parseltongue

"Testing" – talking

"**Testing**" – Goa'uld voice

'Testing' - inner voice

_Testing_ \- spells/letters

oOo - change of POV

xXx - scene break

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2\. Age-appropriate action.

'It sure is one hell of a day.' Ater thought to himself after lying his host body on a comfy bed in a recently rented room in Leaky Cauldron. 'And I still can't believe that I almost forgot about Hedwig.'

And he would have totally forgotten about her if not for a rather loud reminder from a said bird just as he was about to leave his host former bedroom. Thankfully Hedwig didn't wake the rest of the residents of number four Privet Drive.

After that, he quickly grabbed the cage with the bird, raided the fridge once more and headed out outside.

That was a moment when his brilliant plan to blend in as a muggle fell apart.

One would ask how in the hell a de facto (thankfully former) muggle could fuck up such task? It was actually rather easy to do with a trunk that was as tall as his host when standing on a side carried with one hand on a shoulder and a rather loud and annoyed owl in the other hand. Not only that, but it was about eleven in the morning (Dursley's were _still_ asleep), Thursday (he saw a newspaper on his way out) and a rather lovely day.

There were plenty of people around, and all started staring the moment he got out of the house.

He might as well get out there nude with the attention he got till he found a discrete place to put on the cloak and call in the Knight Bus.

And finding that place took him more than an hour because while he knew there was a park nearby, he didn't know the damn directions to it. Ater was also rather sure that if he didn't manage to go on that bloody bus when he did, he would have to explain himself to the coppers or some concerned adults. Thankfully he only received some queer looks.

Stan didn't try to wiggle any information from him, which was good, and thankfully the ride itself was rather uneventful outside of the adrenaline-filled fight to stay alive/in a seat.

You know, the _usual_ Knight Bus experience.

After that, he just entered the desolate pub that doubled as an entrance to the Diagon Alley and rented the room. One would _also_ ask who in their right mind would rent a room to an eleven-year-old, but due to the powerful magic of money, he was able to achieve this feat.

Basically, he just tossed ten galleons on the counter and asked for a room to stay for a week, when a day cost a galleon in a basic room. Without the cleaning and food included, but still pretty cheap.

Tom the Bartender still eyed him with apprehension and worry but thankfully didn't comment on his age. The pub was also rather empty, which probably attributed to Tom's willingness to bend the rules in exchange for some money.

Thanks to that, after giving a generic fake name (John Smith), he was set.

And that brought him to this moment enjoying the bed in his new room.

It wasn't anything fancy, just a bed and a dresser in a small five by ten feet room, and looked more like a storage compartment than a proper room but it was enough for his purposes. That and it had a window, windowsill of which now was occupied by a cage with Hedwig.

Ater glanced from his lying position on the bed at the bird. The snowy owl looked at him impassively and without blinking, and he was pretty confident she was confused.

He was more than sure that she thought there was something not right with her master, but she met Harry less than twenty-four hours before he took over, so he was hoping that it won't be an issue.

"Hey there girl," Ater spoke to the owl moving to the side and extending his fingers inside the cage to pet the bird, "Harry is unfortunately no longer "home" as they say. I tried to save him, but … well, I couldn't do it. I guess you are stuck with me now, huh? Name's Ater by the way."

He petted Hedwig gently, and while she seemed to not understand him at first, he felt a wave of sadness the moment he informed her that Harry was virtually gone. She then let out a soft "hoot" as if acknowledging what he said.

He blinked, and then looked more inquisitively at the bird.

"Um … can you understand me?" He felt pretty stupid asking a bird that question but was vindicated when he felt an irritation, now very clearly coming from the owl, mixed in with still prevalent sadness.

"Hoot!" Hedwig pronounced sharply and glared at him for daring to ask such a stupid question.

He was pretty sure that it was supposed to mean something along the lines of - "Of course I can you Idiot!".

Ater grinned at the bird and carefully took his hand out of the cage, the moment he stopped touching Hedwig the feelings he sensed from the bird became much more muted but still recognisable. Apparently direct contact with her straightened, what he assumed was a familiar bond, or beginning of one.

He wondered for a moment how Harry managed to forge the bond in less than a day when he realised something.

"Wait … did Harry named you?" He asked the owl, focusing on the connection to her and at her confused "hoot" he got a feeling of denial.

"Of course, he didn't." Ater murmured to himself, annoyed that he didn't catch this little detail before. He remembered clearly that it took some time for Harry to name his owl. "Well … Harry wanted to call you Hedwig after some rather famous witch he read in History of Magic book, and I also think it is a pretty awesome name. I hope you don't mind being called that?"

He might have embellished a little the importance of the name (as far as he knew that is, he didn't read the book yet) to the owl but he didn't want to name her anything different because it would be just weird.

Hedwig (hopefully) looked at him with a soft "hoot" that sounded more like a musing "hmm" and finally bobbled her head and pronounced a sharp "Hoot" with a flap of her wings.

That was a definite "Yes".

"Heh … nice to meet you, Hedwig." Ater spoke with a grin and moved to stroke, the snowy owl once more, and when he retreated from that, he received an affectionate nip on his finger from her. "I can see you like this name, but I am not so sure you would like to stay in this cage for the rest of our stay in here. Do you want to spread your wings a little?"

Hedwig definitely liked the idea because he did not only feel a noticeable spike in excitement but also a loud screechy "Hoot!" that sounded to him like an eager "Yes!".

Ater moved to stand from the bed and then stood in front of the birdcage, he quickly opened it and let an exited owl out. She exited the cage and with a flap of her wings deposited herself on his shoulder.

"It's only about one o'clock, and I plan to do some things in the Alley, so don't be distress that I am not around when you come back. I will also leave the window open." He told the owl as he was opening the window and after receiving a quick "hoot", that he supposed meant "OK", she was off.

Ater smiled internally as he looked at the owl flying into the distance but still within the Alley, probably looking for other owls to hang around with and do a little hunting. The feeling of joy from Hedwig was almost intoxicating even when muted considerably.

He let himself be swept in it for a moment, enjoying sharing it with now his owl familiar.

He was more of a cat person before coming here, but owls weren't so bad either.

With a sigh, he centred himself once more and looked around the Diagon Alley properly for the first time. It was rather empty-looking with a small number of people milling around, but it could be that this was regular traffic for the Alley beside shopping days for Hogwarts students or holidays. And because he was used to muggle level of crowdedness, it looked rather empty to him.

That or everyone was enjoying their afternoon tea or something.

'Isn't afternoon tea more of four to seven o'clock affair?' Ater mused to himself for a moment and enjoyed the beautiful weather and warm air on his host skin. He then looked more keenly on the stores and their names. 'Well, whatever … its time to stop procrastinating and start to work.'

Gringotts was easiest to spy as it was quite a prominent sight in the middle of the Alley, splitting it in two, some distance from Leaky Cauldron. He also saw Flourish and Blotts, Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, Ollivanders, Slug & Jiggers Apothecary and so on.

He will have to explore the Alley thoroughly to get a feel for the best place to get his wares, but that was for later.

Gringotts was his main target for today, and it made him feel somewhat apprehensive with his plans of going inside the goblin ruled bank.

He hadn't the foggiest if they were capable of detecting his true self.

Unfortunately, he couldn't skip going to the bank, as all his plans relied on access to Potter wealth. He would have to purchase a lot of books to make use of his eidetic memory and gather as much knowledge as possible, with one of his primary goals being to learn how to shield his mind from unwanted intrusion.

And with today being the first day of August he only had a month to do so.

Money was the key to his success, and he would more than likely need a lot of it.

He would also need to learn as much about Alchemy as possible because he suspected that naquadah was not a thing that could be found on this planet, possibly even universe, and the only way he could think of acquiring more of the element was to transmute it with Alchemy.

And without naquadah, there was no way he would be able to reconstruct Goa'uld technology to any reasonable degree. Sure he could reverse engineer some of it with the aid of muggle tech, but to build Kara kesh, for example, he would need the naquadah otherwise something equivalent would be much larger or ridiculously underpowered.

There was also an issue when it comes to his Prim'ta when he will go around to … "making" them. Not only he could only go all in or nothing when it comes to racial memories, but they needed an environment rich in naquadah just after birth to absorb it, as Goa'uld couldn't produce naquadah naturally … obviously.

And the amount of naquadah available to him was also limited. To replenish it he needed to feast on a Prim'ta or bath in naquadah enriched water, both solutions being unavailable to him right now. If he were to change hosts two more times or lose too much blood, he would run out of it.

And he didn't have a clue what that would do to his control over his host magic but suspected it was rather crucial.

Thankfully naquadah wasn't as time-sensitive of an issue at the moment. Money and Mind Arts, on the other hand, were.

"No time like the present, I guess." Ater murmured to himself and prepared to move out to meet the goblins after fishing out of the trunk water basin for Hedwig (which he filled at a nearby communal bathroom) and some owl treats, which he set near her cage.

xXx

"Well … that was easy." It took him just over an hour to not only visit, now his, vault but also get a special money pouch that drawn the amount he needed directly from Potter Vault.

And goblins didn't so much as blink at him with suspicion. Which was rather anticlimactic.

Apparently, as long as he had the vault key, he could come and go as he pleased. And while setting up the money pouch that could only open for him and draw how much money he needed at the moment was more complicated, it still required no more than his wand and a hefty fee.

Talk about security … or lack of one.

Unfortunately, the vault didn't have anything more than money even if he had free rein over it. He hoped for some books and/or something akin to grimoire with Potter magic in it.

Besides money, he got absolutely nothing.

When he asked his goblin guide about it, not Griphook but Hooknose this time apparently, he said that all of the physical assets belonging to Potter household were monetised by the Ministry and "appropriate" value was deposited in his vault.

By the sound of amusement when the goblin said a word "appropriate" he, or rather Harry, got ripped big time. Which he kind of expected Ministry of Magic with their rampant corruption, and filled with sympathisers to the pureblood cause, would do.

It didn't stop him from being rather pissed because of it and already plotting revenge, if not for him then for Harry.

But that also left him somewhat confused because his vault was filled with gold, literal mountains of it, and if he were ripped of Potter money by the Ministry, then how exactly was he so wealthy?

When he asked Hooknose that he got an answer that he should have anticipated - donations.

Harry Potter was famous all over the world (magical one at least) and his vault received hefty donations soon after the defeat of Voldemort. From grateful people that felt they owed him; politicians, that wanted to show how supportive they were and so on.

It didn't really matter who donated, as much as the end result of said donations.

He was _filthy_ rich.

And Ministry not only couldn't touch his money, but they also don't even know of it because of separation between Gringotts and the Ministry of Magic that made the bank a separate land belonging to the goblins.

Basically, another nation inside of Magical Britan.

And that worked for him now because he had no doubt in his mind that if the Ministry knew of his wealth, they would have ripped Harry even more, or tried to take the gold for their own use. It would have been political suicide if people found out about Ministry stealing from an orphan, let alone Harry Potter, but someone like Fudge would probably go for it.

'Thankfully, that didn't happen, and I don't have to worry about money anymore.' Ater thought to himself as he spied Twilfitt and Tattings store near the entrance to the bank and started to go in its direction.

He needed new clothes to reflect his status because if there is one thing Goa'uld memories thought him is that looking the part of someone with power mattered as much as actually having in the first place.

After that a new trunk for his future books and to the Flourish and Blotts to buy them.

He twisted his host face in a nasty grin under the hood he wore to reflect his anticipation for all the knowledge he was about to acquire.

It was good to be productive … and rich.

xXx

'Fuck, shopping is more annoying than I remembered.' Ater thought to himself as he finally returned to his room after extending his stay in Leaky Cauldron with Tom to September first. With twenty galleons extra just to shut him down from any questioning.

Judging from a greedy glimmer in his eyes, he was pleased with the transaction.

He was glad that the bartender didn't give him any problems as he didn't want to bother with finding any new accommodations. And if he wished to relocate to a room that better reflected his new wealth, it more than likely could bring with it some uncomfortable questions.

Besides, it was Leaky Cauldron – better rooms were probably not that different than the one he was staying in.

He looked around the room and noticed that Hedwig didn't yet return, but he wasn't worried. If he concentrated enough, he could feel a faint echo of her feelings, and she was apparently having a great time enjoying flying.

Good for her.

He closed the door and locked it from the inside, which wouldn't do much for a determined wizard or witch, but it was better than nothing. He was counting for some elemental security enchantments or something along those lines to be in place. Thankfully there were carvings of runes around the doorframe, that glowed a little when he locked the door, that were probably just that.

'Note to self, don't flaunt your wealth around like an idiot. No point in inviting trouble.' Ater thought as he looked at the new attire, he was wearing, consisting of black slacks, boots and belt with a gold and silver accents.

Nothing too fancy.

He was also wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with silver buttons and couplings that had a snake motif. On top of that was a simple black waistcoat with gold buttons that also had a snake motif. On top of all that was a jet black cloak that when closed and with hood up, hid his face and attire entirely.

Everything had a resizing, environmental, cleaning, strengthening and self-repair enchantments on it that would last him years, possibly even to adulthood, and cost far more than its weight in gold. He also had several different shirts, vests, slacks, cloaks, belts, socks, underwear (modern enough thankfully), three pairs of boots, pair of dress shoes and a rather dashing pair of men's high boots that had an old fashion military style to it.

OK, he might have splurged just a little bit.

For his defence, this was the first time he experienced wealth, outside of Goa'uld memories, and he got a little carried away. And Goa'uld memory was hardly a good example to follow in this situation.

'Oh, whatever. The cloak cowered me entirely, so no one saw my super expensive clothes beside the shopkeeper at Twilfitt and Tattings.' Ater thought with a mental shrug.

Any other point of interest for potential thieves would probably be his buying all the books in the Flourish and Blotts, which he did quietly in the back room either way, as the trunk shop was empty when he purchased the Library Trunk. Said trunk also had a myriad of enchantments including resizing, featherlight, security, sorting, catalogue, strengthening and self-repair.

That trunk alone cost him a thousand galleons.

He didn't even want to think about the cost of his new clothes.

Ater pushed that dreadful thought aside as he fished two small boxes out of his pocket. One was the now not so empty library trunk and the other a generic wooden box with his clothes inside, including the school uniform he came in, that the shop included as a courtesy. It only had a one time resizing and featherlight charms, applied in front of him, and would last till he broke it with a simple tap of his wand or after a day. Whichever came first.

He put the box with the clothes on the dresser for later and put the library trunk near his standard school trunk and took out the Holly wand from his new holster.

Like his DIY one, it was on the inside of his left arm, but this one resembled more a stylish armguard made from black leather than anything else.

He absolutely loved it.

'Who knew Twilfitt and Tattings sold those? Thanks to that I didn't have to go to the Ollivanders, which would probably end up in something weird.' Ater thought with an internal snort remembering that particular trope.

Thanks, but no thanks.

He used his wand to simply tap the small trunk, which resulted in its rapid expansion to the same size as the school one. It was an intricately carved blackwood trunk with a book and owl motif, with owl representing the knowledge. He stashed the wand in a holster once more and pressed his host right index finger on a central carving of an open book on the lid of the trunk.

"Serpens Deum," Ater spoke the password with amusement and heard the click and slight lifting of the lid.

While Goa'uld literary meant "god", he thought that translating it into Latin "snake gods" would fit better.

He opened the lid and was greeted with the inside of the trunk that made him droll internally.

It was a standard design for a portable library, or so the store owner said and was easy to use. Inside looked like a horizontal bookcase with seemingly only two shelves packed with books, but on the right side was a wooden wheel that if rotated, would cause the shelves to slide downwards revealing more books.

The trunk could hold up to ten thousand books apparently.

It automatically sorted the books alphabetically by author, title or by subject. The sorting method could be selected or changed using another nifty feature of the mobile library – The Index.

The Index looked like a leather journal and could be used as such if the store owner could be trusted. It was housed on the inside of the lid, in a leather sleeve attached to it.

When opened it contained the list of books inside the library the order of which could be changed on the first page by merely underlining one of the three options resulting in changing the colour of ink from black to red and any pen, or quill, marks quickly disappearing into the parchment.

To summon any specific book all you needed to do was to simply tap the title in the index with a wand and speak _Legere_, which moved the shelves to the location of the book and lifted it slightly for ease of identification and removal.

Ridiculously easy and convenient.

Ater might have access to eidetic memory, but this library would definitely ease in cramming all that knowledge into his mind.

'I might as well start now.' He thought with a mental grin and selected one of the few books in the Mind Arts category.

xXx

It took him only to the end of the first day to finish all of the books that counted to be under the subject of Mind Arts. There were only ten books, and most of them rehashed similar themes and only described Occulumency, and bearly even mentioned the existence of Legilimency.

He sensed the Ministry censoring efforts in that because there was no way that was all that Mind Arts were capable of.

Especially considering in his headcanon Mind Arts were much more capable and had a myriad of uses. Some of which were crucial to his future plans.

There was no mention of sorting any memories, for example, and Ater was sure that was a thing as far as he was concerned.

Still, the books contained ways on how to learn Occulumency and that was enough for now, so while practising he read the rest of the books, including Hogwarts first year set, besides the boring ones that centred mainly around history.

Time flew by, and before he took notice, it was already in the middle of August.

xXx

Ater opened his host eyes at four in the morning from his daily one hour rest period.

While Goa'uld didn't need sleep, their hosts did. Thankfully he could streamline the process to bearly an hour a day, and in an emergency, he could even make host go without sleep for up to a week before taking rest.

Majority of Goa'uld from his memory actually preferred a more natural sleep cycle, outside of an emergency, if only because it took work to quicken the rest period of a host. Dreams were also a rather pleasant change of pace for most Goa'uld.

He preferred productivity.

It thankfully paid off because he read all the books he found useful that he purchased from Flourish and Blotts. And he was also glad that his practice of Occulumency managed to produce some tangible results.

The art of shielding your mind from intrusion basically boiled down to infusing it with magic and walling all unwanted access from outside.

It took him a couple of days to finally figure out how to infuse his mind with magic instead of just brain like he did at the beginning.

Apparently, the two were separate.

And the only way he knew that he succeeded was because the books mentioned a rather peculiar effect of a temporary mental separation when he finally did so. It was akin to suddenly growing a completely separate part of yourself, and yet still connected.

It was an interesting sensation, to say the least.

Up till now, a mind for him was something that the brain created, and without one, it just didn't exist. But the moment he finally managed to infuse his, not his hosts, mind with magic, it became apparent he was wrong.

After that, he managed to erect shield rather quickly by merely creating a moving wall of magic akin to a storm with him in the eye. Movement, or a mental representation of it, was more natural for him to maintain than what was described in the books. Which basically was the somewhat familiar mantra of "clear your mind".

Fun fact about all of this? His host mind was, while still connected, separate from his.

But he was also able to infuse it with magic and create a similar defence. The best part though was that to get to his mind via Legilimency an attacker would more than likely have to breach first his host mind, then locate his own, and penetrate it as well before able to get the juicy parts.

An unexpected perk of being a Goa'uld, one he was more than glad to have.

The only issue now was testing the strength of his defences. And the only way he could think of, outside of exposing himself to a Legilimency attack from a magical sentient being, was some kind of mind invading artefact.

Something akin to a Sorting Hat but not sentient and preferably able to cause pain.

He wasn't a masochist, but the pain was the easily noticeable effect if his protection failed, and nothing conscious will ever go anywhere near his mind as long as he can do something about it.

Well … causing pain and easily removed, that is. No point in being stupid.

Knockturn Alley seemed to be the most logical place to acquire such artefact, but the problem was that an eleven-year-old would be a visible and easily accessible target.

To counteract that he planned to brew an Ageing Potion and age his host to look to be about twenty-five. While a seemingly perfect solution, the problem laid in his inability to say if his real body, naquadah in his host blood or both would affect how the potion would work.

He just wasn't sure.

Potions, though, came in three primary groups.

Ones that possessed their own magic reservoir and didn't need the recipient to have any to work. It made them more expensive as they required highly magical ingredients to work, but could work even on muggles if necessary. Most healing potions were in this category to not use up the magic of the patient while healing them.

Then potions that required the taker to have a certain amount of magic to work. Most prank potions, such as hair colour changing, were in this category. They were also rather cheap to make.

And lastly, the potions that required the one taking it to have magic but also had their own. It was to augment the effect of the potion. Not only were such concoctions expensive, ingredients-wise, but also usually hard to make.

Ageing Potion was in the first category thankfully, so he counted on it to just work as advertised. Unfortunately, he had to make it himself as the potion was, funnily enough, age-restricted.

From the recipe, it looked to be reasonably smooth brew, and he already bought ingredients in two different potions supply shops to not raise any suspicion.

In his former life, Ater was a reasonable cook. He also had some experience in lab work, as well as memories of Goa'uld scientists in similar settings.

So he should be OK.

Hopefully.

He stood up from the bed and changed out his pyjamas consisting of black T-shirt and boxers that he purchased at Madam Malkin's on his second day at Leaky Cauldron.

He didn't really need them, sleeping only an hour a night, but appearances needed to be maintained. Especially at Hogwarts.

Ater then approached one of his two new trunks.

After the charms failed on the box filled with his new clothes he realised that there wasn't enough place in the school trunk for them.

So he had to take another shopping trip to buy appropriate Wardrobe Trunk. The trunk itself was a warm brown colour with an ivy pattern carvings. Touching the lid and speaking password (Anguis Cutem) resulted in top moving upwards about six feet like an elevator and revealing a small wardrobe that could contain a ridiculous amount of clothes. Touching the closet and repeating the password reversed the process.

It was actually kind of cool.

It also cost him another thousand galleons.

The second one was a seven compartment trunk, similar to Moody's from the books, and he was somewhat hassled by the eager store owner into buying it. It was also made of blackwood, but instead of any carvings, it had metal finishings giving the trunk a sturdy look. He wouldn't deny that it was super useful, but for the price of almost two thousand galleons, it was also super overpriced in his opinion.

It had seven compartments, the size of a standard trunk, selected by twisting the key in the trunk lock and selecting one of seven numbers arranged above it.

Thankfully to be even able to put in the key, the keyhole was protected by a cover, you needed to touch the lid and speak the password which lifted the cover if correct. Repeating the password closed it.

He decided the password to be "Deus vult", mostly for giggles.

Each compartment could be enchanted for specific needs or expanded up to a hundred times the original size.

Obviously, any additional work on the trunk cost extra.

He got curious and asked why you could expand the space of the compartment only hundred times while his Library Trunk could potentially hold ten thousand books, the volume of which was far more significant than even hundredfold expanded standard trunk.

Apparently, his Library and Wardrobe trunks were specialised and optimised specially for the type of things they stored and in combination with various other enchantments, like resizing and sorting ones, they used the space to its maximum capacity.

It was actually ingenious how efficient the process was.

In the end, he just made the store owner install stasis enchantments in the first two compartments without changing anything else.

He used the first compartment for his potion ingredients, and a third one for the new potions equipment he ended up purchasing yesterday. It was more high end and could be used indoors, thanks to the heatstone stove that was without open flame and vapour collector that looked like a bridge lamp.

Ater took out and set all the necessary equipment near his bed and started the three-hour-long process of brewing his first potion.

xXx

It turned out to be a rather straightforward if lengthy procedure.

He read a lot about brewing beforehand and understood the process pretty well, in his opinion, and the potion was theoretically simple to make.

It still took him almost six hours to make a potion that was supposedly only a three-hour brew.

The delay was mainly of his own making, as he was used to preparing everything beforehand. So he did so carefully with each ingredient, checked them for any flaws, and then stored them inside the first compartment of his Multi Trunk for maximum freshness.

Only then did he start the brewing process, and the preparation phase took him as much as the whole potion-making thing.

The brewing, without the preparation of ingredients during it, was much more boring. Ater still had to look out for changes in colour, temperature, viscosity, fume behaviour (colour, amount etc.) and of course do all the steering and ingredients adding.

In the end, he was successful and able to make enough of the potion for twenty-five vials. Each of which could age him about fifteen years for five hours.

Theoretically at least.

He was apprehensive that the Ageing Potion would react with the naquadah adversely and cause problems.

Ater could just imagine his host ageing too much to the point of not able to even move or being stuck fifteen years older than he supposed to be.

He didn't worry that his host would die because the potion changed only his appearance, not his actual age.

There was actually a Deageing Potion as well with similar effects as the one he made but reversed. And while apparently many people tried to make themselves younger with it to fend of Grimm Reaper, it just didn't work.

Sure, you feel as if you are younger for a while, but it is just an illusion, and inside you are still an old fart.

There was also an issue of diminishing returns that arouse with frequent use alongside some significant side effects in case of overuse.

The potion though was the main ingredient in some beauty creams on the market, and it was very popular with the ladies.

Go figure.

'Now … let's see if it actually works on me.' Ater thought as he unceremoniously chugged the potion out of the vial after storing the excess in a second compartment in a Multi Trunk.

He was wearing his expensive attire, so he didn't have to change as it supposed to readjust and resize itself as he grows.

The sensation as the potion settled in his stomach was peculiar, to say the least. He could actually feel the potion and a buildup of magic he supposed would soon age his appearance.

And then the accumulation of magic released. Spreading a feeling of growth and age throughout his host magic.

For a second, his host body felt as if it was too small for his skin, and then it slowly started to grow. After a quick and familiar intrusion of the resizing enchantment scan on his host body, the clothes followed too.

The books stated that the process was quick and painless, which was correct in his case as well, and that changes were only superficial.

But from his Goa'uld perspective, the changes were also very fascinating to watch.

The changes only affected his shape and absolutely nothing else. His host hormonal level, for example, was the same during the process.

Which was extremally weird to experience for a Goa'uld like himself.

The change finally stopped, and he moved to the mirror that was build-in inside the door of the Wardrobe Trunk.

"Huh… I think I actually look better than I imagined." Ater murmured, momentarily surprised by his host adult voice, and looked over his host new appearance astonished. He still looked like Daniel Radcliffe, but it was like he was a perfect version of him with no noticeable flaws.

He was also over six foot in height.

Ater knew that symbiote would heal the host, and if implanted early enough, would also improve the looks as well and negate any native impacts on development from environmental and even some genetic factors.

But the effect he saw right now was ridiculous.

His host looks were not only very handsome and aristocratic but also due to a cold, expressionless face; he also acquired a dangerous aura that wasn't as pronounced when he was a kid.

Perfect.

Even if his face is covered during his excursion to Knockturn Alley, it centrally bode well for his future.

Being both attractive and dangerous-looking will only help him, and he knew how valuable it was thanks to his racial memories.

But before he would go out, he had one last thing to test out that he was putting off for a while now.

Ater took out his wand and ignored the slight pull that he felt every time he took it in his host hand. He then recalled everything he knew about spellcasting.

He read a lot about how to do spells with wands and some mentions of other kins of foci, even wandless magic. But in the end, the fundamentals were the same in all instances of external magic use.

All you have to do was to just expel a certain amount of magic, or Mana as his Alchemy introduction text called magic stored in the core, with proper intent. Foci were then used to shape the magic into patterns representing the effect you wanted the spell to have which was done via foci (in his case a wand) movements.

Patterns themselves were determined with the help of arithmancy.

Wandless magic differed from the focused one in lack of this structure and therefore was extremely limited in use. Essentially the only thing you could do wandlessly was elemental and telekinetic manipulation.

It was also a surprise to learn that spoken components of spells have a tangible effect on spellcasting. Ater tried once to speak word _Lumos_ with intend to create a light, and he actually felt a pull on his host magic. Not enough to create an effect on its own, but it was there.

The text he read explained that the longer the language was used, the more it would imprint meaning on its words. The effect was especially strong if the users of said language were magical as they were more connected to the magic.

And as Latin was not only old but also used for a long time, it was useful to augment the spells and make it easier for them to work and to cost less energy.

Apparently, the most potent language in that regard was Atlantian, but it was also lost to time, and only a handful of words were known worldwide. Ater tried to find said Atlantian words, but he couldn't find any other mention of them anywhere. He guessed that they were treated as national secrets, as it made sense to hide something so seemingly powerful.

It wouldn't stop him from trying to find them, though.

The effect that made Latin into go-to language for spells in England, there were more suitable languages around that were more powerful … but the tradition in England dictated the use of Latin, also made runes into a magically significant and useful tool.

Of course, instead of sounds, the meaning was imprinted on pictograms representing ideas and concepts. Unfortunately, Latin and similar alphabets couldn't be used because letters such as "A" for example didn't really have any meaning on their own. Runes, on the other hand, magical humans used "runes" as a blanket term for any magical pictogram (including Chinese characters and hieroglyphs), can hold magical properties thanks to having a meaning of their own. Rune "ᛋ" (*Sowilō), for example, meant "sun" but also could be used in a sentence thus making runic arrays and enchanting possible.

He saw a few examples of runic arrays and to be honest they didn't really look like anything he ever considered sentence would look like, especially since all of them were arranged in a circular shape and usually had a rune most representing of the intended function of the array in the centre.

But the most fascinating find concerning the runes was the fact that they were separated into two distinct groups.

Legacy and Origin.

And while Legacy Runes followed the imprinting rule and consisted of the oldest and most used alphabets, Origin Runes were totally different.

In a way, they were entirely opposite.

Origin Runes were relatively recent find, according to his runic magic primer textbook only discovered fifty years ago, and all were circular pictograms with astounding complexity. Only four were known so far, and all found due to a lengthy process of arithmantic calculations that tried to asses the actual shape of a chosen concept.

In a way, they were like two-dimensional wand movements diagrams but much more complex, and the process to find one could, and often did, took decades.

The four known Origin Runes were that of fire, wind, earth and water. With rune for light being in development apparently.

The problem with Origin Runes was not only the small amount of them, but the fact that the more complex concepts were much harder to "craft" into runes than simple ones like the four elements were.

'Maybe I can use some kind of quantum computer for quicker arithmantic calculations to get more Origin Runes?' Ater mused internally while still eyeing the wand in his hand. 'Eh … no point in being nervous now. I can think about runes later, now is not the time.'

He really should fix his "mental sidetracking when nervous" problem.

Not wanting to lose any more time he concentrated on magic under his control and pushed it into the wand. It turned out to be ridiculously easy to do so, almost as if the wand itself was aiding the process, which he figured was most likely correct.

Ater could still feel the magic that was now in the wand, even if to a lesser degree compared to what he experienced magic felt in his host body.

He commanded his host body to take a deep breath then to exhaled it.

He quickly and gracefully performed a simple wand movement while concentrating on creating a light, not too bright, on the tip of the wand. He visualised the light with intensity and spoke aloud using his host mouth just at the end of the wand movement.

"_Lumos_" Ater spoke clearly casting a spell for the first time.

He felt the magic in the wand as it took shape with the wand motions, infused with his intent, and the moment he spoke the pull he felt before seemed to propel the magic shaped in the spell out of the wand through its tip.

The tip of the, now his, wand exploded with light blinding his host momentarily. Ater immediately noticed that the light was much more bright than he wanted it to be and also that the spell seemed to feed continuously of his host magic.

The magic fed to the spell was tiny and barely noticeable but apparently still strong enough to cause the spell to go haywire.

He focused on his host magic and tried to reduce its amount being fed to the spell but the moment he tried to do that the spell extinguished itself.

Ater blinked a few times to get rid of shapes dancing in his host vision and looked at the wand, annoyed.

"Well … that went well." He murmured with exasperation.

He suspected beforehand that he will have problems with control, due to naquadah in his host blood amplifying properties, but this was just ridiculous.

He could even properly control a bloody Wand-Lighting Charm.

Talk about embarrassing.

Still, he didn't seem to have gotten in trouble for his spellcasting, as there were no owls with letters.

Ater twisted his host face in a sharp grin and pushed his annoyance, due to lack of control, back. It wasn't really that much of an issue as the spells he would need to protect himself in Knockturn Alley didn't require much in control, either way, to be effective.

And he could just practice and learn it later.

He would need to do that because things like charms and transfiguration needed reasonable control to work correctly, from what he read. There were also other spells that he learned about and were super useful were also sensitive to the proper amount of magic used.

So practice he will … later that is.

"Now, let's check if I can do some wandless magic too," Ater spoke with a grin and stashed his wand in the holster.

From what he read about wandless magic, it should be rather easy for him to do. All he has to do was to expel magic with intend to do something. It was limited to elemental and telekinetic manipulation, but even then it was still advantageous to know it.

Ater read that light and darkness were also considered elements here so he theoretically could cast wandless equivalent to _Lumos_ too.

Wandless magic was considered a staple of a powerful wizard or witch, but you didn't have to be a powerhouse the likes of Dumbledore to be able to do it.

From what he read, anyone could learn in time to summon his/her wand, for example. Any more than that required talent and power and manipulating elements outside of conjuring a small amount on the palm of one's hand was in a realm of mythical elementals.

Time to break some old assumptions then.

He raised his hand and faced his right palm up as he concentrated. He simply focused on an intent to create light and visualised a small orb of light over his host right palm.

He then pushed the magic out of his host body.

It turned out to be much more complicated than with a wand, and apparently, wand helped more than he realised. But it was still something he could power through.

The moment he felt magic leave the right hand, he spied a bright mist leaving the palm that quickly assembled itself into a small orb of light bearly an inch over the hand.

He felt that the orb continuously fed of his host magic, much more of it than with _Lumos_ too, and he tried adjusting the intensity of the light.

Increasing it was easy and he quickly had to cover his host eyes with his other hand, he also noticed that since the orb was connected to his host magic, it wasn't as tricky to feed the light sphere more of it compared to trying to make it in the first place.

Decreasing the intensity was much more difficult, but he managed to do it either way. He was even able to lower the brightness to rather dim light when the orb finally shivered and disappeared.

He had to really strain his control over his host magic to control the brightness, especially at the lower spectrum, but he was glad that he managed to do that.

He twisted his host face in a grin once more and laughed internally.

He just cast a wandless spell, and on a first try too.

"Maybe I'm not that far from overpowered Isekai protagonist after all." He mused happily, the whole endeavour causing a significant rise in his mood.

He snorted internally at that thought, he knew that he wouldn't allow himself to be anything other than extraordinary in this new life.

He had enough of being a rather ordinary guy in his previous existence, and the memories of Goa'uld showed him just how much he could gain if he were on top of the food chain.

He will not be a despot and enslave everyone, but on top, he shall be.

Ater could rationalise it as a defence tactic against Voldemort, having his own followers would significantly increase his survivability, but the simple truth was that he just wanted to be on top.

To be the one making the decisions.

To be the one in control for the first time in his life.

In his old life, he lacked both the motivation and ability to change that. He just cruised through life feeling as if his existence was meaningless.

Like he was worthless.

"**No more!**" He spoke with conviction, unconsciously using his Goa'uld voice.

He saw in his racial memories how his ancestors were worshipped, how they were _revered_.

How much power they held in their hands.

Just how weak he had to be to not be following in their footsteps?

He won't be cruel and downright evil because it wasn't in his nature, but he also will not shy away from dirtying his hands to take what he wanted. Besides being oppressive and cruel was stupid and led to strife and revolutions either way.

He would learn from his racial memories, the Goa'uld mistakes, and be better than all of them.

Now that he had the ability, the motivation to reach the top, he will not waste it.

Once was more than enough.

"**They will all bow before me,**" Ater spoke again, this time deliberately speaking in his "God" voice. He looked ad his reflection on the Wardrobe Trunk mirror and flashed his eyes just for effect. "**And they will bloody like it!**"

He snorted, this time making an effort to do it using his host body, and twisted his face in a grin once more.

It's not like he will give his future followers any other choice.

xXx

Knockturn Alley was significantly more annoying than he expected.

On the one hand, he wasn't harassed that much, especially since the first person that tried that was blasted into a nearby wall and fell unconscious. He even used wandless kinetic push to do that and apparently overpowered it too much because the guy in question seemed to broke a few bones in the process.

No significant loss there, as far as he was concerned.

On the other hand, he couldn't find the very thing he was looking for.

Sure he managed to find a few interesting books that he stored in a magically expanded black dragonskin sachel, as he purchased one just before venturing into the infamous alley, that now hung from his shoulder.

But outside of it, there was nothing too interesting around. Just more of the same shops as in Diagon just more run down and usually with second-hand wares.

He needed a different approach.

It was apparent now that even if places were selling the things that interested him existed, he wouldn't be able to find them without some information. Now that he thought about it, he felt a little stupid for not thinking of it beforehand.

Ater thought that he would just waltz in the Borgin and Burkes and demand the artefact he is after and after paying he would simply walk out.

He couldn't even find the bloody shop, let alone buy something there.

While reading either fanfiction or books, he always was baffled how stupid it was to sell something illegal in broad daylight. All it would take to close such a shop and put the owner in Azkaban was a single Auror just wondering in.

Apparently, Eternal read his misgivings on the matter and decided to find someplace that was more logical than that.

Yey.

He was _overflowing_ with _joy_ right now over that fact.

Ater stopped his trek through the alley and checked the time on his new gold pocket watch that he purchased just after the sachel. He did so after he realised that he didn't have enough control to properly cast the _Tempus _spell.

He tried, and the only thing he got out of that was a brief flash of light.

He tried that in front of the shop he bought the sachel. One of the passersby gave him (Him!) a pitying look after witnessing him casting the spell verbally and failing.

He wanted to choke that bloody arsehole.

'Note to self, prioritise control practise. It was bloody embarrassing to not be able to cast such simple spells.' Ater thought sourly and saw on the watch that it was now four in the afternoon. 'Fantastic, and now I have to take another dose of the potion or its shrinking time for me.'

He still had a few minutes of potion working, if it worked as advertised and he measured the dose correctly, but better safe than sorry.

He fished one of the three vials of the potion he took with himself from the sachel and chugged it in a quick move, depositing the empty vial back where it came from. The taste was rather unpleasant the first time, so he turned off the taste buds to spare himself the experience this time.

Perks of being Goa'uld were nice sometimes.

'Now, let's find some information on the more unsavoury shopping places. Or more precisely, someone willing to part with such information for me.' Ater thought, looking keenly over the portion of the alley he was in.

The Knockturn Alley was rather empty, from what he saw when walking around it, but he figured that would change when the night came. But there was still a few of the more shifty kind walking around, one even blasted by him in the wall, so he wouldn't have too much trouble with finding informant for himself.

Willing or not.

After a few minutes looking around the alley, while hidden in the shadow of one of the shopfronts, he found a possible future informant.

He was a middle-aged guy, dishevelled with a dark and obviously old robe, and was continuously looking around himself as if expecting to be attacked. He wasn't doing it nervously though and had somewhat sharp eyes.

Good enough.

Not wasting any time he walked after the man. The shifty guy immediately noticed him and suddenly became visibly nervous. It was probably because he was walking quickly in his direction, not even pretending that he wasn't his target and the hood over his face made his appearance hidden.

Funnily enough, he was in the minority when it came to the hiding of his face.

Apparently hiding your face was a sign of someone that was clearly hiding something, didn't belong here and was an easy target, or so he overheard some of the residents speaking behind his back.

They stopped speaking when he blasted that idiot that tried to pickpocket him.

No one bothered him nor spoke in his presence after that, so he figured they had some quick way of communicating about someone not worth harassing. Or just really good and efficient rumour mill.

Probably the latter.

As he neared his target, the apparent criminal started to quicken his pace and made a motion that could only be reaching for a wand, or a dagger from his left sleeve. So not wanting to deal with that, and possible injuries resulting from an actual fight, he used his enhanced strength and speed to catch up suddenly to his mark and shove him in a convenient entrance to a narrow side alley.

Ater immediately followed the guy, glad that the central alley was relatively empty, grabbed him by his throat with his right hand and pushed him on the wall, making sure that his feet were dangling in the air.

His right was hand occupied with still holding now panicking and suffocating informant, so he used his left to grab the guys left forearm and fealing a familiar shape of the holster he simply ripped it of the potential criminal body along with the sleeve of the robe.

Ignoring a whimper of pain from the man he lovered him to the ground and allowed him to breathe while also throwing the holster away from him and his … guest. He didn't remove his right hand from his captive throat, and before he could do anything else than inhale sharply, the air previously denied to him, Ater spoke.

"**You will stay silent mortal, and only answer my questions. Do otherwise, and it will be the last thing you do. Do you understand?**" He spoke in his Goa'uld voice to sound more intimidating, and instinctively used "mortal" instead of planed "scum".

It was just more natural to him to refer to such lowlife as one, thanks to his racial memories.

'Whatever, it still worked as intended. And probably added to the intimidation factor.' Ater thought as he saw the reaction to his words.

The man he spoke to stilled the moment he heard his voice and from scared grew to terrified in a second. His breath shallowed, and the informant annoyingly started to perspire like crazy.

He snorted internally at the reaction while also trying to subtly retract his robe right sleeve from touching the skin of the perspiring idiot.

It was a new robe for goodness sake.

After a few seconds, it became clear that the man was too terrified to answer, so he reminded him of the situation he was in by squishing the throat once more briefly. Just long enough to draw his guest from the stupor.

"**I asked you a question and expect the answer immediately, you **_**pathetic**_** mortal. Now!**" Ater spoke once more but this time added the flash of his eyes at the end.

Apparently, that was something even more terrifying than he expected because the idiot started to shake like a leaf and his eyes grew even wider. He then smelled a distinct aroma of human piss.

'Oh for fuck sake.' He thought annoyed as he glanced down and spotted a growing puddle of piss soon to reach his military-style high boots. 'Not my boots! That pair is my favourite!'

Ater tried to subtly manoeuvre to a safe position, but apparently, that fucking idiot didn't take a leak in a while because he was spewing piss like an open hydrant.

Finally giving up on subtlety he simply hoisted the moron up once again by the throat nad moved few feet to his right to escape the flood of urine that was about to desecrate his favourite pair of boots.

He was fucking pissed now.

He unceremoniously shoved the annoyance against the wall once more and spoke with a low and threatening voice that promised untold torment if he was denied an answer or pissed on again.

Or so Ater imagined he sounded like.

"**Twice you denied me my answer, and there will be no third time! You will answer your God now, or you will die mortal! Do you understand?!**" He was so annoyed that he accidentally called himself a "God", not that Ater was particularly bothered by that, but he should watch out in the future not to fell back on his Goa'uld memories too much.

It would be slightly suspicious if he started to call himself "God" during a random argument at Hogwarts or something.

Thankfully the leaking idiot finally got the message and spoke for the first time.

"I … I … under … understand, my … my Lord." The idiot stuttered out with terror evident in his voice, earning a mentally raised eyebrow from Ater.

'Lord? Hmm … it does sound nice, doesn't it? No wonder Tom liked to be called that. At least I have an appropriate amount of healthy respect and fear out that annoying human hydrant. Now let's see if he actually knows anything useful.' He thought and then focused once more on the idiot.

"**Finally you learned your place mortal. For that, you will live, as I am a merciful God. And so long as you answer truthfully to my questions, you will continue to live. But lie to me …**" Ater couldn't deny to enjoying hamming it up Goa'uld style, so he decided to embrace his slipups and go full "angry God" routine on the idiot. As far as he was concerned, he deserved it for almost pissing on his precious boots. He let the pause last for a couple of seconds and continued. **"… and I WILL know! And your punishment shall be torment eternal!**"

…

Nailed it.

He was having a great time, and his little speech was apparently working wonders because this time, the idiot answered almost immediately.

And he didn't even have to prompt him to do so!

"I will my Lord, I swear! No lying!" The idiot proclaimed quickly, curiously no longer stammering, and while still visibly terrified, he no longer looked as if he would fall apart with the slightest push.

Ater assumed that this was due to a promise of spearing the idiot life if he was truthful with his answers.

He didn't plan to kill the guy either way, but his unwilling informant didn't have to know that so all was good as far as he was concerned.

"**Good. I can see the truth of your conviction in your soul, so rejoice mortal as you shall live as long as you follow it**." He snorted internally at his own words, he probably was going a little overboard, but he didn't care anymore.

Ater needed a little stress relief, and this was just too entertaining.

He was having such a fun time that he decided to try a little something to fully solidify his claim to godhood in the eyes of his captive and fully eradicate any notion of lying from the idiot's mind.

Outside of reading his body language, he wouldn't have any clue whatsoever if his informant lied, so a little extra incentive not to lie was helpful.

Or so he told himself to justify a little showing off session.

Besides, Ater really wanted to try it in the presence of other magical human to see what would happen. He suspected that there would be at least some reaction, a feeling of oppression or something, as similar things in fandom often resulted in anyone feeling a powerful aura.

So he unceremoniously released his hold on the host magic and allowed magical surge to happen once more.

The effect was instantaneous as all of his exposed skin started to glow softly, and he felt the pain affecting both his host and real body. Just as before he turned off any discomfort felt by the host and ignored the small, but steadily growing, pain from the symbiote side.

He wasn't worried about his host face showing as the hood of his cloak was enchanted with a simple but effective obscuring enchantment, that covered it in permanent shadow. The only part of his host face not cowered was the eyes, as that apparently would have made it impossible for him to see anything.

He estimated that he could allow the surge to continue for about a minute before being forced to take control back and close the connection to the core forcefully or risk significant damage.

He focused on the reaction of the idiot to his little light show and wasn't disappointed.

Eyes wide, mouth hanging open and he looked ready to pass out. His expression was filled in equal parts with wonder and terror and looked as if he was drunk on the magic that was produced due to the surge. Ater suspected that any of the feelings induced by his surge were additionally amplified due to the physical contact, so he let the moron go and watched as he fell to his knees shaking all over.

"**Witness my power mortal and know that you were touched by the divine!**" He spoke once more and flared his now visible aura for effect by pomping even more magic from his host magical core and regretted it immediately. Ater felt a spike of piercing pain from his real body and swiftly started to subdue the surge to stop any more damage from occurring.

He still had to withstand several seconds of intense pain caused by his flare that only subsided when he ended the surge.

He ignored the consequences of his showmanship for now and focused on the idiot the moment he had his host magic under control once more.

The man now lay in front of him, apparently losing all motor control after he flared, and was breathing heavily while also blinking owlishly and staring at his boots with a faraway gaze.

He hoped he didn't break the moron by accident, as he didn't fancy finding anyone else to interrogate.

"**You had the privilege of witnessing a glimpse of my true self mortal! Consider it a reward for your conviction and a warning from straying from the path of the truth when speaking to me. Now kneel before your God!**" Ater spoke to the semi-catatonic man in front of him with a hope that he would react.

He was about to leave after a minute of no response from the man to find someone else when finally the idiot moved and knelt in front of him on one knee.

The piss spewing moron then looked up at his obscured face and spoke.

"Thank you, my Lord, for the gift of witnessing your power. Your wish is my command. Ask anything, and I will do anything in my power to answer truthfully." The man spoke softly with a tired voice but filled with reverence and his eyes reflecting pure awe and wonder when looking at him.

Ater blinked owlishly as he digested the words and the state of the man kneeling before him.

'Did I just accidentally brainwashed a random guy into worshipping me?' He thought surprised as he looked at the utter devotion on the man's face.

He just wanted to convince him of his power enough to stop the unwilling informant from lying to him.

Ups?

xXx

A/N: So a little more exposition and fleshing out the magic and world in this chapter. I do hope that you liked it, though.

So R&R, please!

And see you next time!


	3. A Bit too Much

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Stargate SG-1. HP is the property of J. K. Rowling and is not my intellectual property. Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

A/N: Sorry for taking so long, but writer's block is a bitch. But hey – I'm still here, aren't I?

I lifted some parts directly from the first HP book (just a few sentences really), mainly in the introduction of Draco and the interaction with Hagrid. Just so you know.

Now have fun reading, and I hope you like my take on Hogwarts.

ENJOY.

.

§Testing§ - parseltongue

"Testing" – talking

"**Testing**" – Goa'uld voice

'Testing' - inner voice

_Testing_ \- spells/letters

oOo - change of POV

xXx - scene break

.

3\. A Bit too Much.

Ater looked around the Hogwarts Express compartment he just got in with a content feeling. He arrived about half an hour before the scheduled departure, already in his school robes. He Floo to the station from the Leaky Cauldron (for some reason the Floo travel agreed with him, and he got to the station without any issues), so there was enough time for choosing an empty compartment and settle in.

He wasn't about to pull a Weasley on his first ride on the Express.

Ater pulled his school trunk on an overhead rack, on the left side of the compartment near the window, where he was going to seat. His Library, Wadrobe and Multi trunks were sitting comfortably in his left trouser pocket shrunk as he wasn't going to risk it with the possibility of them being discovered and searched. Especially with the Library Trunk as it contained now some questionable, if not downright illegal, books.

He usually wouldn't have risked bringing something even remotely damaging like that with him to Hogwarts. Still, with how busy he was since his venture into the Knockturn Alley, he wasn't even able to read all the books he purchased when he finally found Borgin and Burkes.

And that particular feat wouldn't be possible without his brand new Lo'taur.

The man he accidentally brainwashed, the mechanics of which he will be studying when more time was available, was named Angus Percival Smith and about as generic as his name. He was fifty-six-years-old crook without any living family and a small apartment in one of the hovels in Knockturn Alley. Thankfully he was also useful in helping him find valuable magical artefacts and books that were unavailable In standard bookstores as well as provide a way to monitor the more shady side of the Wizarding Britain.

After much deliberation on what exactly do with his sudden servant, Ater decided to keep him as useful means to acquire things when he was inside Hogwarts and as a middle man to his future dealings with anyone he didn't want to know his identity. Be it as Ater, Harry Potter or any other persona.

Besides, having a lackey was a sign of power, and it stroked his fancy to have one so soon.

Even if he got him entirely by accident.

So he gave the man ten thousand galleons to either buy or rent a home in Hogsmeade, which would serve as his temporary headquarters. He also tasked him with safeguarding his more illegal purchases, including Mind Torture Ring that he was surprisingly immune to - thus answering the question of the adequacy of his Occlumency, as apparently, that was unheard of. He instructed Lo'taur to await his letter and find a job in Hogsmeade to blend in with the locals but without sewering his contacts in the wizarding underworld.

Ater ordered him to learn Occlumency as well, as a way to safeguard his secrets. He didn't hold much hope that the man would learn sufficiently from a book alone (not everyone knew mind like a Goa'uld) so he instructed him to use the Mind Torture Ring once a week for five minutes to check his progress.

The right motivation was vital, after all.

Ater also decided that his new acquisition shouldn't know his identity for now. Hence, he only interacted with him under the influence of the Ageing Potion and with face shrouded in enchanted shadows of his hooded cloak. He didn't even give his Lo'taur a name, outside of giving himself the title of Father of Gods, as an additional safety precaution.

Calling himself a Father of Gods was a spur of the moment decision, more to have something his servant could call him besides "My Lord", but it was strangely fitting as he would be a parent to a whole species of "Gods" eventually.

Thinking of using the Ageing Potion prompted Ater to think of the first time he used it, causing an internal grimace of pain as his host body was seated near the window with the History of Magic book he pretended to read.

He learned the hard way that the potion had an unadvertised side effect that caused him some inconvenience and even pain before he turned off his host pain receptors. Apparently, the Ageing Potion made it impossible for him to heal the body of a host and counteract the effects of using it over its natural limits. Not only that, but it also masked that fact from him because he didn't detect any damage before reverting, which indicated that the aged body was either an illusion of some kind or just false.

So it was a surprise for him that the moment effects of the potion runoff, on schedule thankfully, he collapsed immediately due to the damage to his muscles caused by extended use of enhanced strength. It only took him a few minutes to fix the muscle tearing and bruising enough to walk again, but it was annoying either way.

Using the host body without enhancing under the influence of the potion resulted in no damage, so it was evident that he couldn't improve his host physical stats when aged without paying the price afterwards. There was also an issue of not knowing what would happen if he was forced to do so for an extended time.

It wasn't that much of an issue for now, and it would get away as his host body aged naturally, but it was enough for him to consider quickening the ageing process of his host.

Ater could enhance his host just fine without ageing it with a potion, but results were pitiful compared to adults body. He could bearly strengthen his host to a level of an average adult male, which was fine when dealing with kids, but any adult would be a threat.

And that was when considering the physical aspects, magically he felt he was even worse off.

When dealing with his servant Ater realised that he had an ability to feel magic of anything he touched, which was something he noticed before with inanimate objects but it was nice that it also worked with people. He saw thanks to this ability that, compared to him, everyone else had a minuscule amount of magic coursing through their bodies. That was fine, but his ability to use that power effectively was basically nonexistent.

He spent much of the time after his trip to the Knockturn Alley practising his control and was thankfully able to proficiently use all of the first year spells and some of the second year as well. But the more complex the spell, the more control it recurred, and it was progressively more difficult to master.

It was like trying to use a hose to precisely fill, at a specific rate, a glass of water, with more complex spells being like multiple smaller glasses to fill with a different rate each.

To say the least, it wasn't easy. And Ater was already having significant problems at a second-year level.

On the other hand, his wandless proficiency was rising steadily. He could already create and use to throw conjured elements, mostly fire, and his telekinetic manipulation was both stronger and more precise. The problem was that any decently trained magical could just throw a Stupefy at him, and he was toasted if he couldn't move away. Sure the awe factor would help him and potentially allow for quick resolution of any conflict, but the problem was that eventually, someone would fight back.

And with his meagre repertoire of spells (he couldn't even cast a bloody Protego yet) and wandless magic he would lose to someone with just a little experience in combat.

There were probably some students at Hogwarts that would be a challenge for him to deal with during one on one confrontation, let alone in groups. And the least said about the teachers, the better.

Ater felt that with enough time and practice, he would be able to achieve control over his host magic to rival the likes of Voldemort and Dumbledore. That, combined with a massive boost to power thanks to the naquadah in his blood and wandless magic, would make him more powerful than both of them put together.

But how long would it take to rise to such a level?

Ater couldn't help but think that the only answer to that was "too long".

The only thing he thought could help him in faster mastering of control over his host magic were advanced Mind Arts, the problem was that he couldn't find any texts on more advanced techniques. He did manage to find a book on Legilimency at Borgin and Burkes (which he read immediately and even managed to enter his servant mind to test his loyalty), but besides that, there was nothing more.

He suspected that Ministry of Magic put a ban on those texts a long time ago and the only thing that survived of Mind Arts to this day were Ministry redacted books on Occlumency and illegal Legilimency ones.

Why that was was unclear, but it represented both a problem (due to lack of information) and an opportunity. Especially if he managed to get his hands on some books on Mind Arts that were released before the ban.

And Ater knew of one place that such books could have survived – Room of Requirement.

He smiled internally as he felt the telltale lurch of a train starting to move.

It was going to be a productive year of learning for sure.

xXx

His self appointed isolation didn't last a whole lot as someone barged into his compartment no more than an hour after the Express started to move.

That, someone, turned out to be the one and only Malfoy heir.

"Is it true?" Draco said as he, rather rudely, walked in without any invitation followed by his bookends. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

"Yes," said Ater dryly as he put down the book he was absentmindedly reading before the interruption on the little table in the centre of the compartment near the window.

He was looking at the boys with mild fascination as while Draco looked precisely like his film counterpart, the glorified bodyguards didn't.

He entertained himself for a second contemplating why that is and noticed that both boys looked more in line with their book descriptions.

"Thickset" and "mean" were words that pretty much nailed their look.

"Oh, this is Crabbe, and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Ater was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

The boy held out his hand to shake, looking expectingly at him.

'Well … let the show begin.' Ater thought as he stood up from his seating position and faced the boy. 'Let's hope I can pull the whole Harry Potter thing off.'

"Nice to meet you again, Malfoy." He spoke and twisted his face into a sharp smirk as he shook the pale boy's hand.

He practised a lot the facial expressions and general 'not looking creepy' thing in front of a mirror any chance he got in the last couple of weeks. He still looked cold and expressionless most of the time, but it was better than before.

He thought at the beginning that it would be a minor setback at most, but he didn't factor just how much effort it took to 'look human', and facial expressions were a significant part of that. He didn't realise that any deviations in that area were apparent to humans almost instantly. A fact he learned when he interacted for extended amounts of time with some of the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley.

He suspected that the shopkeepers were used to seeing people that were either non-human (like Goblins) or those that wanted to remain unrecognised but used some ill-conceived disguise (polyjuiceing into a child comes to mind).

So they didn't react to his behaviour and appearance right away.

But even they started to get visibly creeped out by him after a few visits, and he finally noticed that people tended to be slightly uncomfortable around him after some time.

To his defence, he didn't really care what people did around him at that time as he was rather busy with cramping all the knowledge into his head and practising magic to a reasonably proficient level. But he also should have known better than to assume that having cold and expressionless face all the time wouldn't be a problem.

There was a reason that the uncanny valley was a thing.

The hardest were the eyes, but he managed to make them not to look so dead and empty. Hopefully, his effort will work and make him look less like a bloody mannequin.

"Wait, what do you mean "again", Potter?" Malfoy asked, surprised and seemed to look even more intensively at his face. Thankfully he didn't seem to be taken aback by his mannerisms, so it appeared that his efforts in practising facial expressions paid off. "Wait … you look different somewhat but … you were at Madam Malkin's when I was buying the robes, weren't you? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Ah, yes. Terribly sorry for that. I was about to introduce myself but my guide at the time called me over, so I didn't get the chance. Hope you won't hold that against me Malfoy." Ater said with what he deemed to be his "friendly smile" and adjusted his brand new fake glasses slightly.

The glasses were a recent purchase that he concluded was necessary. Hagrid did see his host after all with the glasses, as well as Draco, so it would cause too many questions if he suddenly didn't need them. He didn't get anything fancy and just bought a stock pair of the more pricey ones. They had a myriad of standard enchantments on them, as he read in the brochure at the shop, and were even self-adjusting to the wearer's prescription.

So technically they weren't "fake", but his host no longer had any eyesight problems, so they were much less useful.

As for the look, he chose black rectangular frames with gold accents that gave his host a more intellectual look in his opinion. The lack of the iconic round glasses didn't bother him in the slightest as he was his own person, and visual differentiation from the expected look of "Harry Potter The Boy-Who-Lived" was more than okay with him.

"As for looking differently, I decided that I should look like a proper young wizard and that came with dressing like one as well. I also decided to upgrade to more tasteful eyewear, so it was no wonder that you didn't recognise me immediately from before." Ater chuckled audibly and ended the handshake pointing to the seats in front of the one he occupied. "Why don't you join me, including your friends of course, and stay for a bit. Wouldn't mind having someone to talk with."

Truthfully he minded a great deal having to interact with a bunch of children and pretending to be a child himself, but making friends with Draco was simply too useful to pass out on.

His father was both rich and had considerable political clout. That meant that Malfoy heir was practically untouchable for anyone in Slytherin in possession of any sense of self-preservation. Protection that would more than likely extend to a close friend of said heir as well.

He really didn't want to deal with anyone trying to teach him a lesson or whatnot for the supposed crime of killing the Dark Lord or for being a half-blood. So being a bestie of Draco Malfoy was a preferred alternative.

Bearly.

"Um … Sure, why not!" Malfoy chirped after he processed with slightly dumbfounded look what Ater said.

'Note to self, speak less "adult". From the look on Draco's face, he definitely isn't used to such behaviour from peers at the very least. Let's hope that dialling it just a little will be enough, that or merely presenting it as a quirk of personality.' He thought to himself as Draco sat in front of him with a content smile. 'He probably congratulating himself for befriending the famous Harry Potter and perhaps even fulfilling his father's request to do just that at the same time.'

Ater strongly suspected that Lucius was at least partially responsible for Draco's friendly behaviour towards "Harry Potter". Lord Malfoy probably saw the Boy-Who-Lived as a replacement for Voldemort or just someone young and naïve to use.

Whatever the cause of the interest he didn't mind it for now.

He didn't try to confirm his suspicions via Legilimency as the skill was still new to him, and apparently, he was less than gentle when invading someone's mind. His Lo'taur was very clear about that when he stopped screaming from all the pain.

'Oh well, practice makes perfect.' He thought amused at the misfortune of anyone he decided to practice on. Especially considering that he wasn't going to do so on his Lo'taur, as the man was just too valuable to him sane.

Thankfully there were plenty of test subjects that he wouldn't mind or feel guilty practising on in the criminal underbelly of both Wizarding World and Muggle one.

"So … well, my friends call me Draco and I wouldn't mind you calling me so as well. Mind if I call you, Harry?" The silver-blonde hair boy in front of him asked tentatively with surprising shyness driving him out of his internal musings, the boy's question causing him to deliberately raise his host right eyebrow in surprise.

That was a rather significant breach in pure-blood etiquette.

He read a lot of books since he arrived, but the books on the pure-blood society tended to be rare, expensive and baffling at the same time. And one of the most critical rules revolved around names. Both the Convention on the proper way the child was to be named and who could call you by your given name.

And that was limited to family, spouse and _close_ friends.

But the most important thing was that willingly allowing someone to use your given name carried some magical significance. It didn't let you control such person or anything like that, but it allowed for easier tracking and divination concerning the person. The reason being that magic of a wizard/witch resisted being tracked or being spied on and to counteract that you needed a ritual requiring the blood, or a personal item of significant importance, of the individual being monitored.

But with a willingly given name all you needed was a bowl of water and even a little bit of experience in divination. Which was obviously much more straightforward … and not illegal, as all rituals not sanctioned and monitored by Ministry were.

The permission to use the name could be easily retracted, only in person just like permission itself, but it still showed significant trust and a genuine attempt at friendship.

'And it's not like Draco could lie to save his life', Ater thought as he watched young Malfoy squirm under his gaze for a second. 'That or he is a remarkable actor for his age. Either way, I will not be giving him my actual name anytime soon.'

"Thank you, Draco, for this show of trust, and of course you can call me Harry. We are friends, after all, aren't we?" Ater spoke to his brand new _friend _and received a boyish smile of happiness and bold exclamation of "Of course we are!" in return.

'Yes, it is the start of a rather useful friendship my little Malfoy', he thought with a smile of his own on the host face. 'Hopefully, both useful _and_ fruitful.'

xXx

After several hours spent with Draco Malfoy and nearing the end of the journey of the Hogwarts Express, that curiously wasn't interrupted by anyone else, Ater was both at the end of his patience and thoroughly educated on useless trivia about Quidditch.

He seriously started to hate that bloody game.

It turns out that Draco was a rabid fan and wanted to share his passion for the game with the new friend animating the conversation with exited gesticulation and the occasional grunt from either Crabble or Goyle. He was also forced to pay enough attention to adequately express his very fake excitement at the appropriate times.

He started to seriously regret becoming a friend to an eleven-year-old boy whose head was filled with nothing but Quidditch, pure-blood propaganda and sweets.

Ater was counting on the fact that Slytherins were more mature in their behaviour, and it wouldn't be too noticeable if he didn't act like an average boy that was his host age. He really hoped that Draco and other snakes will adhere to that or he will stick out like a sore thumb.

Of course, going anywhere other than to Slytherin was out of the question. It was his House on Pottermore and damn it, it was going to be his House in this universe too.

That and he liked the unintentional accuracy of being called a 'snake' and being Goa'uld at the same time. It was a little on the nose, but he found it funny.

The fact that he (well … his host really) looked dashing in green and silver helped as well.

He felt a wave of relief when the train finally started to slow down, indicating that his torture time was ending. He quickly rose from his seat when a voice echoed through the train and cut off Draco that was in the middle of explaining a complicated manoeuvre that he invented and could, according to him, beat Wronski Feint easily.

"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately." Said the booming female announcer.

"We are almost at Hogsmeade Draco, we should get ready to go", Ater spoke and immediately busied himself with stashing his History book and a few sweets he bought as a cover into the school trunk.

"Oh, is the ride already over? Wow … the time really flew, didn't it?" Draco exclaimed surprised prompting Ater to grimace internally.

'The time didn't fly at all. In fact, I think it crawled all the way to the end.' He thought with annoyance and already was planning multiple excuses to be as far as possible from the blond menace.

"Shouldn't you get your robes?" Ater pointed to the three future Slytherins as they were wearing their school uniforms but without the robes.

Their uniforms were noticeably better quality than the most he saw when boarding the train and were obviously from Twilfitt and Tattings stock. He also was wearing the same outfit as he purchased three pairs outside of the two regular ones that Harry got with Hagrid. But unlike the boys, he was also wearing the robe over his clothes.

And they obviously left theirs in their school trunks.

All three purebloods slightly widened their eyes and bolted for the door, racing to their first compartment to fetch the robes presumably.

"See you at Hogwarts!" Ater shouted after them with a smirk on his host face and exited the train a few moments later when it finally stopped.

In moments he was surrounded by a proverbial flood of students and was momentarily confused as to were to go. Thankfully he heard the booming voice that could only belong to one person.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. "C'mon, follow me … any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Ater quickly traversed the crowd and blended in the growing group of first-year students unnoticed.

Slipping and stumbling, the children followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. Ater moved with them carefully and tried to avoid Malfoy who joined them late and was now obviously looking around and trying to more than likely spy his whereabouts.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

Even Ater felt a wave of elation when looking at the ancient castle. It indeed was a dream come true to him, and the first sight of Hogwarts definitely didn't disappoint.

It truly embodied the word "magical" in all of its glory.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore.

Ater followed into an empty boat. Unfortunately, it didn't stay empty for long as he soon was joined by three others. He immediately recognised them as Hermione, Neville and Ron.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then … FORWARD!"

As the boats started to travel on the surface of the lake Ater curiously studied the three other passengers. Hermione looked just like the actress portraying her in the movies in his world, (Ron and Neville also looked like their respective actors) and was excitingly speaking with bemused looking Longbottom heir.

He felt a stare directed at him and was not surprised when he turned to open-mouthed Ron looking at his forehead.

"Are you Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.

"Yes, congratulations on finding me. And who are you exactly?" Ater spoke with his usual emotionless tone drawing the attention of the other two.

He might have been a little short with the redhead, but he had enough conversations for one day thanks to Malfoy and wanted nothing else than to be left alone.

"Ron Weasley" the boy managed to get out totally unfazed by his response but had ben cut immediately after by exited bucktoothed girl.

"Are you really? Harry Potter, I mean?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course. I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

He felt a spike of amusement when he spied Ron shooting annoyed glances at the bushy-haired girl that was now speaking to him and stole his chance to do the same.

"Am I really?" said Ater dryly, trying to sound sarcastic but failing. For some reason speaking sarcastically was very hard for him and he apparently needed more practice in modulating his host voice to get it right.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione, appearing to be genuinely shocked. Thankfully she quickly changed subjects. "Do you boys know what House you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best. I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad... Oh, and I'm Hermione Granger, by the way."

She stuck out her hand and gave him a quick and firm handshake that wouldn't be out of place in a business setting.

He snorted internally at that.

Both Ron and Neville responded with "Gryffindor" to Hermione's question, with Ron bold exclamation of his preferred House and more of a hopeful murmur from Neville.

All of them then looked expectantly at him, waiting to hear his choice.

"Slytherin", Ater said ignoring Ron's shocked gasp and Neville paling face. Instead, he focused on Hermione and cut her off before she could comment. "And I would recommend Ravenclaw for you, Miss Granger, you seem both like a studious type and someone who takes her future seriously. Because of that Gryffindor would be a bad idea unless you like being surrounded by a bunch of kids that wouldn't see studying as a priority, as I hear they tend to be on a more rowdy side. And that would cause you to stick out. I trust you know what happens to someone who sticks out, doesn't you?"

Ater wanted to avoid the situation with the Troll and Hermione not being bullied by Ron would help in that. He hoped that if he managed to influence her to get into Ravenclaw, most of her problems would cease to be, and it will also simplify things if he wanted to interact with her.

As a Slytherin, speaking with anyone but a Ravenclaw or a fellow snake on a regular basis probably wouldn't be too well-received due to House rivalries. Granted she was still muggleborn, but he hoped that as a half-blood and someone rather famous for having muggleborn for a mother, it would be somewhat overlooked.

He could always claim he was using her for the intellect if anyone was making problems.

The message was thankfully received as he saw Hermione pailing in understanding. She obviously had experience in what happens when you stick out.

"But you can't be a snake! You are the Boy-Who-Lived! You _obviously_ belong to Griffindor!" He heard Ron exclaim with indignation after managing to recover from shock, prompting him to look in his direction.

"I really don't see myself as Gryffindor material Weasley, while also possessing vast amounts of ambition and healthy amounts of other traits that are regarded as Slytherin", Ater said not impressed with the reasoning of the redhead boy. "I also look much more dashing in green and silver so there is no contest in my mind where I will go."

His explanation on his choice obviously didn't impress Ron as his face twisted in a disgusted grimace. And while Neville was still pale, he looked a little less scared after he spoke.

What did come as a surprise was Hermione's reaction, as she snorted rather loudly at his comment on looking dashing, obviously founding it funny. Apparently, she wasn't as stuck up as he imagined her to be.

Before the conversation could continue, something unexpected happened that took all of his attention.

They were about halfway to the castle right down in the middle of the Great Lake, that was about a half-mile across, Ater felt some kind of strange magic around him.

He didn't even have the time to ascertain the nature of the foreign magic as it suddenly turned from barely detectable to a literal wave of arcane energy.

It felt disturbingly similar to what he experienced when he was near his host magical core but without the pain. The pressure was all-encompassing, and he managed to detect that it scanned him in some way but before he could discover more the feeling ended just as abruptly as it started, leaving behind only a comparatively small sensation of pressure.

'Wards', Ater thought after he managed to calm his nerves from the whole unexpected experience. 'That's the only thing I can think of that could cause this. I do remember feeling a tingling sensation when entering Gringotts, but it was nothing compared to what I just felt. Hogwarts really does have some beefed up security, that's for sure.'

And not only he could detect crossing the ward line, but he could also still feel the weight of the wards.

'Hogwarts: A History did mention that most people do feel a tingling sensation when crossing the castle ward line, but that didn't feel very tingly to me. I wonder … is it because of naquadah in my blood? If so, then this could be potentially useful.' Ater thought as he looked at his companions to see if they felt something.

"Did you feel that? What was it?" As if prompted by his thoughts, Hermione spoke with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. Before anyone could respond, she gasped, and a look of understanding bloomed on her face. "Wait, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History! That must have been ward boundary we just felt! The book says that Hogwarts is one of the very few places that you can actually feel it when crossing it! Usually, you would need specialised curse-breaking training to sense the wards! Isn't that amazing?!..."

Exited Hermione started to spew any fact she knows about wards at that point, which was surprisingly a lot, so he ignored her mostly and simply enjoyed not being bothered by anyone. Ron and Neville were unfortunately caught up in Hermione's energy, so they were forced to listen to an impromptu lecture about the awesomeness of wards.

Ater could understand her enthusiasm, as he thought that wards were pretty awesome too. That's why he would incorporate them in any spaceship he will eventually build alongside all the standard array of shields and defence/offence systems.

Well … as long as Goa'uld technology worked with magic. But he was reasonably sure that it would.

After all, most was based on the technology of the Ancients.

The closest thing to magic wielders from the universe of Stargate he could think of.

As he was internally musing about incorporating magic and technology of the Goa'uld, the high castle overhead towered imposingly over the group that sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff, prompting most to bent their heads and also finally silencing Hermione.

Little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle until they reached a kind of underground harbour, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the large, Oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?" The half-giant looked at Neville questioningly witch prompted a shy nod from the boy.

Ater just rolled his host eyes at the whole toad thing, still travelling with the same group from the boat.

'Seriously, who would get a toad willingly as a pet? In school, no less. That's social suicide in the making, even in the Wizarding World from I could gather. Good thing that I got Hedwig, at least she will be useful.' Ater taught looking with pity at the young Longbottom.

Thinking about Hedwig, he curiously checked where she was at the moment and was satisfied that he felt her from the direction of one of the towers – that presumably held the Owlery.

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door, drawing Ater's attention once more.

Just as he expected her to appear, a witch that was unmistakeably Minerva McGonagall opened the massive door.

I wasn't much of a surprise for him that she looked much younger than her film counterpart, while at the same time looking precisely like Maggie Smith. He knew that magic not only significantly increased a magical human lifespan (on average about twice that of a muggle) but also made them look much younger than their actual age.

He didn't know if it also increased his own lifespan, but he reasoned it was safe to assume that it did.

Which potentially added another two thousand years for him to enjoy.

And without even using the sarcophagus!

Thinking about the primary healing device of the Goa'uld Ater reflected on not using it at all as he followed Deputy Headmistress to the surprisingly big antechamber.

'Altogether abandoning the technology would be ridiculously stupid now that I think about it. I mean, the main issue could be fixed with just a simple optimisation of the device.' Ater mused as McGonagall informed them about the Houses.

The whole problem came about because the Goa'uld were lazy and didn't bother to change anything from the original design after it proved to be working. Granted, the side effects didn't show until hundreds of years passed and were minor.

It took thousands of years to turn Goa'uld into megalomaniacal bastards they ended up in the show.

But if he optimised the sarcophagus to use an absolutely minimal amount of energy needed for the healing effect, doing so only on the area that was being healed, he could easily see the side-effects minimised – even eliminated.

Mainly if he limited exposing neural tissue and Goa'uld symbiote to the healing field to only life or death situations, as he suspected that the side-effects were from the imperfect reconstruction of the host and/or symbiote neural tissue.

It made sense, the side-effects were mental after all.

And Ater didn't buy for a second the whole "damaging the soul" bullshite.

He would still do extensive testing before he entered the new version of the sarcophagus himself, no point in leaving anything to chance.

He stopped his musings as the Transfiguration Professor escorted the group of the first years to the Great Hall, and boy did the name was well earned because he was momentarily stunned by the sheer size of the room.

It was definitely a more significant size than in the movies.

Much more.

He felt for a moment as if he entered a football stadium, it was that massive. Not only that but everything else was supersized too, including the four House tables and the central High Table that sat the teachers.

Not to mention the ridiculous amount of the students.

There were thousands of them.

Ater was momentarily confused and looked around himself, finally realising that the group of the first years he travelled with was much bigger than it should according to the books and films alike.

About ten times bigger.

'What the actual fuck is going on!? This is definitely not canon! Damn … it's not even my _headcanon_. Why are there so many people in Hogwarts?' Ater thought bemused and genuinely confused about the new development.

In all of the books, he read he didn't see any hard numbers about wizarding population, granted he skipped most of the boring books but even Hogwarts: A History didn't mention any. He thought it was weird but chucked it up under cultural differences and moved on.

He did read after all that Magicals overall had a weird dislike on assigning numeral values to people.

It apparently had something to do with arithmancy and magical properties of numbers.

He really should have researched more about that. Still, he considered arithmancy rather dull compared to his racial memories of advanced mathematics and just focused on reading how to use it for spell creation.

'But why so many people? The changes in my headcanon shouldn't result in such a massive increase in the population of magical humans … I think at least—most of the changes revolved around establishing the rules of magic and making it into a hard system. Maybe the more scientific approach to magic had some far-reaching domino effect on the whole of wizarding society?' Ater thought frantically about how his changes could amass to such an increase of population while traversing the length of the Greate Hall to the High Table where he could see the stool with the Sorting Hat.

Which he could spot thanks to his improved eyesight, as they were small and still rather far away.

He even spotted the unmistakeable figure of Albus Dumbledore on his golden throne.

The Headmaster reminded him of one of the changes that he made in a spur of the moment.

When talking to the Eternal about the setting of the universe of his arrival. Change not fitting the more calculated kind that composed his headcanon.

Alchemy.

Or more precisely _Fullmetal Alchemist_ kind of alchemy.

'Holy Shit … was that it? I didn't really think it through back then, but does that mean that I basically introduced complex science to the Wizarding World? Because that's what the alchemists of the Fullmetal universe basically are - Scientists. The proper _modern_ kind.' Ater thought, kicking himself mentally for the lack of foresight.

He was aware that this world didn't change because to him, and his wording of the setting of his chosen universe changed just his destination. But it was still shocking to see just how much of effect the introduction of proper science had on the Magical society.

He then realised another thing that caused an internal grimace.

His position was far less adventitious than he assumed.

He wasn't dealing with the backward society of scientifically illiterate wizards that had a meagre population to boot.

No, he was dealing with a society with at least ten times the population and definitely more magically advanced. The fact he should have realised when he read the books he purchased. But he just assumed that the wast and detailed magical knowledge and ingenious enchantments he read about were not widely known and used.

After all, everything seemed to fit his view of the HP universe that had only more hard system of magic not based on the whim of the author of the canon books.

And to him, the wizarding society of Britan was definitely backwards and prejudiced.

And while it was still the latter, especially towards the so-called Dark Creatures, it definitely wasn't the former anymore.

'Well … Fuck. Shit just got infinitely more complicated. Not only that but suddenly Goa'uld technology doesn't look like the trump card I hoped it would be. At least the run of the mill weapons wouldn't be, I am still confident they didn't attain space travel capabilities so a Ha'tak would give me a massive advantage in conquering the magical population of Britain.' Ater thought annoyed at the added difficulty.

Thankfully outside of increased population and more advanced magic, the Wizarding World seemed to be the same as he imagined it.

'Unfortunately, that also means that the two main obstacles will be much more dangerous than I assumed.' He thought as they gathered in neet lines in front of the Sorting Hat. 'If Dumbledore and Voldemort now know advanced Alchemy … It will likely be like fighting two bloody Fathers from the Fullmetal universe … Joy. I really should have thought it through before adding the Alchemy bit.'

While that was the worst-case scenario - if they both laked philosopher stones, then it would be much simpler.

Thinking about the Stone, that he wanted to steal either way (even if it was probably a fake), just added more questions for him.

Did its creation was the same as in the Fullmetal universe? Or did incorporation with the Harry Poter world change that?

He knew due to his studies that alchemy required magic and as far as he could tell, there was no mention of the Gate of Truth.

'I really hope that that particular aspect of Fullmetal universe doesn't exist here', Ater thought to himself as the sorting started after the Hat stopped its song. 'I really don't fancy being at the mercy to the closest thing to a God since meeting the Eternal … and I just know that if the Gate exists here as well, I will end up meeting Truth at some point.'

Thankfully from what he could gather any "unfair exchange" that should bring someone attempting it to the Gate of Truth just ended up not working at all or had explosive outcomes.

So hopefully he will not have to deal with anything even remotely close to being "godly" for a long time – ideally ever.

Well … outside of claiming to be Divine himself, that is.

xXx

Just to make a point and show his annoyance Ater deliberately started an eye twitch and glared at the bloody Sorting Hat.

He was tired of waiting for the procrastinating enchanted headwear that took his sweet time with every student that it sorted. It on average took just a couple of minutes to sort but with the number of students present it took almost an hour to get even remotely close to him.

He used most of that time looking around and marvelling at the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, and it looked even more phenomenal (in his opinion) due to the size of the room.

After he got tired of that, he focused on the teachers.

There were obviously more of them, which was expected considering the size of the student body, and seemed to be separated by the departments that had from five to ten people in them.

It was easy to tell considering each group was clearly separate, and in front of the part of the table they sat on (with big golden letters) was the name of the subject they taught.

In front of Dumbledore, on the other hand, was simply the school crest - indicating his position as the Headmaster.

"Potter, Harry!" McGonagall eventually shouted, drawing him from his musings about teachers and the subjects they taught.

'Finally! The really should have streamlined the process considering how much people they have to sort. Even is they couldn't replicate the enchantments on the Sorting Hat, an easy solution would be just to sort us on the Express. But it was a tradition so it might as well be a law to the conservative society of wizards.' Ater thought annoyed as he ignored the expected cacophony of excitement due to his host status as The Boy-Who-Lived.

It was a little confusing how such a magically advanced society could also be so conservative.

But it also wasn't outside of the realm of possibilities, so Ater paid it no mind.

He stepped out of his line and walked to the stool next to the Deputy Headmistress. The usual emotionless expression firmly on his host face and grace in the movements that came as second nature to him thanks to his Goa'uld memories.

Which also was a picture-perfect representation of an ideal pureblood heir as far as he understood it.

He ignored McGonagall's surprised face, probably due to his new look and behaviour, and sat on the stool facing the yet to be sorted first years.

He held no illusions that Hagrid probably already described his host in great detail, possibly even giving the Headmaster the memory of their time together.

Speaking of Dumbledore, the stool was basically in front of his throne, so he saw him staring at him.

Outside of that, he couldn't see any other reaction.

It wasn't that surprising as Occlumency allowed the user to hid his (or her) emotional responses from showing on the face and body language.

Basically, while that particular technique didn't allow for emotional control, anything shown on the outside was only what the user of that Mind Art _wanted_ people to see.

His musings were cut short once more as after a short delay McGonagall finally put the Sorting Hat on his head cutting his vision as it fell over his eyes.

Just in case he needed it, he reinforced his shields with additional power and made sure that nothing could enter his host mind – let alone his own.

Ater also focused on trying to detect any intrusions or attempts to do so, as that part was rather difficult for him due to the way he protected himself.

Easier detection of even subtle attacks was a clear advantage of the "clear your mind" way over his own comparatively blunt one. But his was far more natural and easy to maintain, also haveing added benefit of being much more durable and able to withstand even the strongest of attacks.

So while he prioritised protection, as he was adamant to keeping anyone out of his mind, he had to deal with the inability to notice any attempt to enter his host mind outside of blatant brutal attempts.

He saw it as a fair exchange.

Focusing on his shields, he couldn't feel any attempts to breach them, but he was reasonably sure that he felt something. Like a pressure outside of his Occlumency barrier, but it was bearly there, and he wasn't sure if he imagined it or maybe that wards were responsible for that.

"Oh my, what strong shields you have there, Mr Potter! Mind lowering them for me so that I can sort you?" The Hat finally whispered into his ears causing a spike of elation in Ater.

'YES! My plan _fucking_ worked!' He thought with an inner joy mixed with smugness.

He, _of course_, read everything he could about the Sorting Hat and learned not only that everything that the enchanted object saw in a person mind during the sorting was confidential but also that there was a protocol in case that the Hat couldn't enter into someone's mind.

Apparently, there were people born with natural shields strong enough to stop the Hat, as well those that developed such shields due to either traumatic experiences or magical accidents.

There were even some very rare cases of what the books referred to as the Mental Tower, a magical gift which rendered those born with it utterly immune to any and all mind-affecting magic.

Their mind couldn't even be _detected_, let alone manipulated or entered.

Because of that, the Founders had to implement an alternative sorting way that boiled down to just talking privately to the sorted student. Sorting Hat even hid that fact from anyone by silencing the conversation and hiding the lip movements by an illusion.

It did all of that to ensure the privacy of the student.

Ater found it funny that it basically meant that in this universe both the book and film versions of the sorting were accurate.

It's like Eternal saw both ways in his mind and just sought the place where both were true.

"Um … excuse me? I don't know what you are talking about. I am muggle raised and just learned about the magical society barely a month ago. Is something wrong?" Ater whispered to the Hat playing clueless. Even if it couldn't speak of anything they talked about, he preferred to err on the side of caution.

"Oh, I see." The Hat whispered into his ears once again.

Ater could have sworn that he heard a note of scepticism.

"And don't worry Mr Potter everything is fine, we will just have to do it less straightforwardly and chat for a moment so I can determinate to which House you are best suited." Hat continued cheerfully and with a reassuring tone. "Now what can you tell me …"

Before he could get dragged into a glorified personality test, he cut the Hat off.

"Slytherin", Ater spoke confidentially and ignored an annoyed sigh from the Sorting Hat. "I read a lot about the Houses and the House of Snakes is a precise fit for me. There is also the fact that I have a goal that is not only very ambitious but also politically inclined. Slytherin is an obvious choice, and going there would help me achieve my dreams."

World domination is a rather ambitious goal and also a political one, so it's not like he lied or anything.

"That, and I heard that you take preferences as a primary deciding point were to sort someone. So Slytherin if you don't mind." Ater added offhandedly with an internal smirk.

"Sounds more like a Ravenclaw if you ask me." The Hat murmured still annoyed, probably because it had to deal with people interfering with its primary function constantly.

He had no doubt that some students demanded a specific House and wouldn't be swayed otherwise, going to the places that didn't fit them in the process.

The bottom line was – he didn't care.

"Eh … I see you already made up your mind and I won't say you wouldn't fit with the Salazar House, but from what I can see Ravenclaw seems like a possible fit as well. If you would …" Hat said diplomatically trying to sway him to be sorted appropriately, but Ater had non of it.

"Slytherin, _If you don't mind_." He firmly spoke to the enchanted object, effectively ending the conversation.

"Fine, but don't go crying to me if you find the House of the Nobles to be far less accommodating than you thought Mr Potter." Hat grumbled now clearly annoyed, but before he could answer it shouted – announcing his new House to the Hogwarts population.

"SLYTHERIN!" He heard the booming voice of the Sorting Hat and stood up, removing and passing it to the stupefied Transfiguration Mistress.

Ignoring the shocked silence, he simply started walking in the direction of his House table. Noting on the way that his robes changed to reflect his new House.

It took a couple of seconds, but there was finally a reaction. Ater heard clapping from the direction of his new table, at first slow but then more and more energetic that soon was joined by the whole of the House of Snakes.

He spied the direction that the clapping first started and was unsurprised to see Draco Malfoy standing there with a shite eating grin.

He twisted his host face to match his "friend's" grin.

As he did so, the shock of his sorting must have passed. All around him, the silence broke from the rest of the Houses, and there was finally a loud reaction.

His grin got even sharper at that.

xXx

"Harry", Draco greeted him as he finally reached his destination. The boy's grin still in place.

"Draco", Ater answered with a nod. He then sat in front of the boy, on the opposite side of the table.

He really hoped that the conversation would not devolve to Quidditch focused monologue from Malfoy this time.

"I knew that you would end up here with us, Harry!" Draco excitedly whispered, as in half-shouted, to him with a smile.

"Seeing as this is the best House, I really couldn't imagine going anywhere else", Ater spoke not bothering to even pretend to whisper. No point in sabotaging his chance to clearly state his allegiance. "And I aim to be the best Draco."

As he spoke, he started to prepare himself a nice hot cup of tea.

Earl Grey, of course.

Apparently, the Hogwarts faculty had at least the foresight to not leave their student body entirely without anything to eat and drink for the duration of the sorting. While not filled with food and drink as the Welcoming Feast will be after the sorting, they at least had some tea, biscuits and even pumpkin juice.

Enough to not die from hunger during what probably to amounted to over two hours of sorting.

"Slytherin _is_ the best, that's for sure Harry. I cannot wait to write to Father and share the news with him!..." Draco excitedly agreed with him and started rambling to Ater and anyone who listened how marvellous it was that the Noble House of Snakes managed to snag _The_ Harry Poter for themselves.

Ignoring the blond, he looked around and gauged the reaction of the rest of the House.

He was disappointed to see that wast majority of his classmates displaying the level of maturity of an average kid their age. At the same time, he saw he was not the only one behaving far more mature than his age would suggest.

He was pretty sure that the dark-skinned boy still waiting for the sorting was Blaise Zabini and the girl with almost white-blond hair that reached her waist that sat nearby was Daphne Greengrass.

The boy looked like the actor from the movies, and he heard the girl name when the McGonagall shouted her name.

They both clearly practised Occlumency at the very least, judging by their cold expressions, so he wasn't alone in looking like emotions were foreign concept for him.

He also noticed that the older Slytherins got, as he spied higher years from his seat, the more apparent signs of Occlumency training got as well. So he guessed that the skill was either thought to all Slytherins at some point or become so crucial that everyone found a way to learn it.

Probably the latter.

Because of that, he had problems seeing how his sorting was received by his fellow Slytherins. Up to the fourth year, he could see that they were cautiously neutral mixed with exited and supporting.

With one or two hateful faces directed at him.

But older than that and all he could tell was that they didn't want to show either support or rejection.

'I can work with that, as long as there is no open animosity displayed I should be relatively immune from any attacks. Asociacion with Draco already proved to be beneficial as it forced the whole House to show support for my sorting.' Ater thought as he directed his host to drink the tea and pretended to listen to Draco's drivel. 'There may still be some who will show hostility more openly, maybe even attack, but as long as I came on top, it may actually be advantageous for me.'

It was a shame that his magic sensing ability was tactile, but he may be able to find a way to extend the range at least his immediate surroundings. It would practically eliminate any chance of anyone ever being able to curse him in the back, so it was worth to try and find a way to do it.

Thinking about his ability, he thought about how Hat felt.

Unfortunately, he didn't feel anything useful from the Hat. He just registered that it was magical, and in a way, he could even feel the intelligence in the magic to some degree. It summoned an image of thousands of gears working together for him, so he assumed that the Hat run on some sort of magical AI analogue.

And while it was slightly unusual, especially so considering it contradicted what he read about how the Sorting Hat supposedly worked, useful it was not.

At least he could think of anything that he could gain from this information … for now.

He sighed internally when Draco finally succumbed to his baser instincts and started his Quidditch talk once more, and he was forced to pay enough attention to at least pretend he listened.

It was official – he hated that bloody game.

xXx

After the sorting had ended, Dumbledore gave his speech, identical to the canon, and they could finally start eating some proper food. He was also doubly thankful for that because Draco was forced to shut up to eat.

Which was indeed a blessing as far as he was concerned.

The conversation after that turned more on the topic of the Third Floor and what it hid, so at least he was free from talking about Quidditch. Interestingly while most he could hear were curious none was particularly concerned as that kind of behaviour was pretty standard for the Headmaster. Apparently, something equally strange happened every few years in the castle, and now most were desensitised to such things.

'Well, wait for the next seven years of increasingly more dangerous events then. It's going to be a ride.' Ater thought amusingly as they finally ended the feast and moved after the fifth year Head Prefects presumably to their Common Room.

The Head Prefects were new to him, but he quickly guesses that due to more significant number of students each year had more than just a pair of prefects, and the Head title was probably given to representative couple from each group of Prefects.

They finally stopped at a random empty patch of a wall in the dungeons after nearly fifteen minutes of brisk walking.

The road there was pretty straightforward, and opposite the wall that was more than likely the entrance to their Common Room was a distinct wall mural depicting a basilisk. It looked like in the movies with the only difference being a red comb on its head.

'Maybe the one in the movies was female? And males have combs? Makes sense, I guess.' Ater thought as the male Head Prefect, that introduced himself as Felix Rosier, explained that the password will be changed every month and it will be available on the board in the Common Room and each year Landing.

'Wait, what? What the fuck is a Landing?' He thought confusedly as they finally entered the Slytherin Dungeons after the Head Prefect opened the entrance with a password.

That password being, funnily enough, _Emerald_.

The sight of the Slytherin Common Room didn't surprise him as the Great Hall did because this time he expected it to be much bigger. And it didn't disappoint as it was the size of what he thought the Grate Hall was supposed to be, it was filled with tables couches and fireplaces and looked quite cosy.

What did surprise him was that they didn't stop there and proceeded to walk into one of the eight visible stone portals—four on each side from the entrance and each leading to stairs.

They entered the first portal to the left, and after a quick journey up the stairs, they stepped into a small circular room about thirty feet across. It was filled with bookshelves, had a few tables, a fireplace with some cosy looking armchairs near it and just as the Common room was draped in Slytherin colours.

Ater spied pair of doors as well - each on the opposite side of the room, parallel to the entrance they emerged from.

"Welcome to the First Year Landing, my name is Acantha Travers, and I am a fifth-year Head Prefect." Spoke the female Prefect this time as she faced them from the centre of the room. "This is an area for your personal use, and it is recommended that you use it if you feel that your activities may cause unnecessary amounts of disturbance. The Common Room, also called a Dungeon, has a strict policy on behaviour, and you are expected to act your best there. Any rule breaking will be swiftly punished, and repetitive offenders will be handled by our Head Of House Severus Snape."

At that, she looked at them pointedly, her face an emotionless mask.

"And believe me when I say you do not want that to happen to you. Other Houses would tell you that he is lenient towards his own, but the opposite is in fact, accurate. And while he doesn't deduct points detentions and more _innovative_ punishments are a norm so I would advise not displeasing him. You will get the chance to meet our Head of House tomorrow morning when he will address you before going to the Great Hall for breakfast. The meeting is _precisely_ at six-thirty, breakfast starts at seven and afterwards you will receive your timetables."

She looked them over once more as if checking if the message sunk in ad continued pointing to her right.

"To your left, you can see the entrance to the Girls Rooms, opposite are the Boys Rooms." She stated, pointing at the other door as well. "You are not allowed to enter the opposite gender rooms under any circumstances. They are enchanted and warded so that you wouldn't be able either way, but we will know if you tried, and you _will_ be punished."

She then turned around and motioned to the other Head Prefect, that stood a few feet behind her and looked at them as if daring them to misbehave, which was clearly some kind of signal announcing the end of their duties as soon after he started to leave.

"That will be all for today and don't forget about the meeting tomorrow. Each of your rooms is clearly marked with a nameplate, so I would suggest going there and sleeping. Goodnight." She spoke one last time and left the Landing through the portal to the Common Room.

After a momentary nervous stillness, the group separated by gender and both halves entered their respective doors, exited conversations sounding along the way.

The door to the Boys Rooms opened to a long spacious hallway with doors on both sides, each bearing a nameplate with a name written in stylised golden letters. As the group traversed the corridor, it became smaller and smaller as the boys entered their rooms along the way. Eventually, only three reminded as they reached the end, each standing by their own door.

"See you tomorrow Harry, and don't be late! Professor Snape is my Fathers friend, and I know for a fact that anyone not schowing for that meeting will be serving some nasty detentions. Goodnight!" With that little advice, Draco wawed tiredly and entered his room, closing the door quickly behind him.

He lazily wawed back to the blond boy and looked afterwards at the only other person left in the hallway beside himself.

"Potter", the dark-skinned boy he recognised as Blaise nodded in his direction with his hand on the door handle.

"Zabini", he returned the gesture to him and entered his own room just as the other boy did the same.

oOo

A/N: So … what do you think?

I hope you liked it and I will try make the next chapter slightly faster. That and finally some Goa'uld related stuff may come into play.

I'm looking forward to writing that.

R&R Please!

And see you next time.


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